


Pilgrim

by manic_intent



Category: Inception (2010), Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: M/M, NOTE: MOST OF THIS FIC IS T-RATED, That postcanon AU where Max walks from the Citadel to Gas Town, and finds that when shit hits the fan he's always magnetically dragged into the fallout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-01 08:32:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4012840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was growing dark out over Gas Town when Max came upon the neat white lettering painted on a sheet of dented metal, nailed to the wall of the shell of an old bus, its once yellow paint long peeled mostly away to a dull chrome, its wheels and engine all shucked, listing on the packed dirt. </p><p><i>If you can read this</i>, declared the sign in narrow lettering, <i>Trade us a secret for a free meal</i>.</p><p>Max studied the sign for a moment more, frowning. His gut clenched: he hadn’t eaten since the late morning, just a quick bite of rations on his way from the Citadel to Gas Town, carefully portioning out his tiny supplies. Still, if wandering the Big Nothing had taught Max anything, it was that anything that was too good to be true in the world was not only a lie, it was also usually downright fucking vicious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Watched Max Max: Fury Road with high expectations, thanks to reviews, an ultra excited office, without having watched the previous films, and LOVED it. 
> 
> I came out of the film without actually shipping anyone, so I seem to have slid back into one of my favourite ships ever (that I haven’t actually written for): Arthur/Eames. Although it’ll take me forever to trawl through the Mad Max wiki, George Miller himself has said that the films are loosely connected, so I think I’ll just take a few points off the upcoming game’s base plot and then watch the other films in my own time… :) Enjoy!
> 
> Also reviews indicated that my ears were actually semi functional during the film. Gasoline is now Guzzoline.

I.

It was growing dark out over Gas Town when Max came upon the neat white lettering painted on a sheet of dented metal, nailed to the wall of the shell of an old bus, its once yellow paint long peeled mostly away to a dull chrome, its wheels and engine all shucked, listing on the packed dirt.

 _If you can read this_ , declared the sign in narrow lettering, _Trade us a secret for a free meal_.

Max studied the sign for a moment more, frowning. His gut clenched: he hadn’t eaten since the late morning, just a quick bite of rations on his way from the Citadel to Gas Town, carefully portioning out his tiny supplies. Still, if wandering the Big Nothing had taught Max anything, it was that anything that was too good to be true in the world was not only a lie, it was also usually downright fucking vicious.

So Max snorted, rubbed his still stinging palm to his jaw absently, and started to turn to go, squinting at the smoky, greasy haze that sat like a stinking old cloak over the basefloor of Gas Town, a gritty blanket that sat uneasily over the constant churning groan of the refinery and the pumpjacks that fed the lifeblood of the town of iron and rust up to its lungs, deep under the spidery mesh of blackened steel that seemed to stab up towards the sky. The Big ‘Un was an unlovely, cobbled together marsh of silos and catwalks and old shipping containers that towered over the rest of the oil town, looking out over the scrap-steel walls towards Citadel and the Big Nothing. 

“Ugly old thing, ain’t it?” 

Max stiffened up, looking sharply back at the old bus. The cushions that had once lined the seats had long been stripped, only frames remaining, the rows of seats choked with boxes and abandoned dross not worth poking through - or so he’d thought. What Max had dismissed as a heap of worn old fabric tossed over some old tools had straightened up, several rows down, and was now leaning a hip against one of the seat frames, standing on the rusted aisle, gloved arms folded under a heavy cloak. 

A slender man, Max decided, after a moment’s thought: the voice hadn’t sounded like that of a woman’s. He was heavily cowled, the cloak travel-stained and sand-worn to discoloured grays, its original hue uncertain, patched and ragged at the edges, pulled close to hide the rest of the man’s arms and gear. Wary now, Max forced himself not to twitch a hand towards his holstered pistol, though he splayed his palms down at his hips, a gunfighter’s warning. 

“Does what it’s meant t’do,” Max said finally, because if the Big Nothing had taught him anything else, it was to be nominally polite to people who might be packing concealed weaponry. He’d seen all-out ear-biting machete-wielding blood-spitting war declared over someone eyeing someone else the wrong way: life was cheap this far out in the wastes.

“Drifter?”

“We’re all drifters, mate.” 

Under the cowl, the man’s mouth twitched into a wry smile. “Ah, a philosopher, then?”

Max stared for a moment, wondering whether the man was having a go at him, or, alternatively and more likely, whether he was stark raving bonkers and was quite possibly about to go right postal. 

Knowing Max’s life to date, it was usually the latter. 

“Evenin’,” Max said warily, and tried not to make it too obvious that he was checking if Cowled Person had friends also waiting in ambush. “See you around.” 

“Not coming in?”

“I got no secret to trade,” Max said, then realized his mistake when the man chuckled.

“A philosopher _and_ a literate man. The day’s full of surprises. Come along then,” the man said, with an imperious little beckon, and when Max hesitated, he added, impatiently, “You don’t want to be above ground after dark, drifter. Look up.” 

With that, the man slipped away, deeper into the bus, on silent feet, and Max rubbed his jaw again, frowning, and glanced up. Max didn’t pick out anything at first: the huge wall loomed over the shacks and pumpjacks and silos and shelled vehicles of Gas Town, distracting and intimidating. On a second sweep, however, Max noted a strange hatch, in a cargo container welded to the wall high to his right, lashed firmly into place with chains, a ramp leading down from the mouth to the street. 

A car port, girded liberally with rust-brown iron spikes, and stamped on the flank, a familiar skull symbol in a circle, with the roof of the circle in flames. Even after death, it seemed, the ghost of the recent and not-so-recent dead were going to haunt Max to his _own_ fucking grave. 

The aisle led to an open trapdoor, a gash in the bottom of the bus, and a ladder down, of rungs that had been hammered into rock. Max could smell food, faintly, something stewing, and his gut clenched again as he stared down, then back out of the cloudy windows of the bus, towards the cargo container. Finally, he shifted the pack against his shoulders, and climbed down. 

Max hadn’t quite known what to expect, but he still blinked, disoriented. The ladder down opened from a hacked stone corridor through crumbled brick into some sort of large basement, big and long enough to hold the War Rig, packed with mismatched, scavenged tables and chairs, where people ate, heads bent, no speaking. He counted people who looked like drifters, transients, sickly, mutants- 

“Not nice to gawk,” said the man, leaning against the door frame, and he lifted up his cowl. It was not a man after all, Max realized, with a blink: a young girl smirked at his surprise, her hair shorn to a dark brown fuzz over her skull, her eyes large and amused in a face dusty with refinery grit. “Sit down somewhere. I’ll get food sent over,” she added, dropping her feigned baritone.

“Thought I was s’posed to trade.”

“You get to eat first,” the girl shrugged, and strode away without a second glance.

Too good to be true. Dodgy as all hell.

Downright fucking vicious. 

Max narrowed his eyes, studying the other people in the room, then warily headed over to the bench closest to the exit, sitting down, feet flat on the ground, pack left on his shoulders. It looked as though everyone was eating some sort of muddy-looking gruel, thick and unidentifiable, but it smelled good and no one was keeling over, luxury enough in this part of the world. Max found that he was very hungry by the time an olive-skinned man with a patchy apron and a floridly curly beard served him a bowl of it.

Prodding through the stew for a wary moment, Max decided he was too hungry to listen to a lifetime’s worth of bad experiences for the day, and ate, tentative at first, then more and more quickly. It _was_ good. He pulled the bowl protectively to himself, hunched over it like the others, and was halfway through by the time someone sat down opposite him at his table. 

This time it was most certainly a man, discoloured cowl already pulled back, fabric pulled over trim shoulders. The man was wearing, of all things, a suit, though the once-black fabric was worn and had been patched up with care, and the white shirt he wore had been washed so many times that it was thin, its collar shapeless against a graceful throat. This newcomer was startlingly, almost unnervingly pretty, with elegant, delicate features, flawed by coldly calculating eyes and a knife-sharp scar of a smile, nut-brown hair combed neatly back. Pale hands slotted through fingerless gloves clasped over the cracked plastic of the table, but not before Max recognised the calluses of a fellow gunslinger. A bandolier belt crossed his chest from right shoulder to waist, studded with magazines, and across the narrow table, Max could see twinned pistols, well-maintained, hugging the gunslinger’s hips.

Since the gunslinger said nothing, Max ate, instead, and tried to watch his peripheral vision, the space between his shoulder blades prickling, and when he was done, spoon scraping the tin of the bowl, he slowly pushed it aside, where the bearded man whisked it promptly away. 

“Seems I owe someone a secret,” Max said finally, when the gunslinger didn’t speak. “My choice, or yours?”

“Yours. Then, if you like, we can trade. Secrets for secrets.” 

“Funny sort’a business model.” 

The gunslinger lifted a shoulder into a light shrug, but said nothing more, up until Max thought over, rather helplessly, what he might be willing to say, and noted finally, “Immortan Joe is dead.”

A smile, then the gunslinger raised his eyebrows. “We knew that already, drifter. A shroud draped over the front of his Gigahorse? Hardly subtle.”

“So it’s got to be a secret that you _don’t_ know? Could’ve added that on the door.” 

“We could’ve,” the gunslinger said neutrally. “Try again.” 

“Some people from Gas Town are stuck with the rest of the War Boys and people from Bullet Town in the ravines. East of here. Probably gonna take them a week to cross back here. Assuming the biker gangs don’t get even.”

The gunslinger looked thoughtful, for a long moment, then he nodded curtly. “Adequate. You may rest in the common room beyond this room for free tonight. But be gone tomorrow.” 

“Sure thing,” Max said warily, then a thought occurred to him as the gunslinger started to get to his feet. “Wait. You guys sell secrets too?”

The gunslinger studied him for a long moment, then he sat back down. “We do.”

“Know where I could get a Pursuit Special? ‘round these parts?”

“Not the exact make, unfortunately, but if you’re looking for a similar car, we could put you in touch with a fair mechanic in Gas Town. For the usual price.”

“The bossman of Gas Town’s been done in,” Max said then. “Big fella, fake nose, fat man, funny suit, bit like yours.”

The gunslinger narrowed his eyes then, and although he didn’t quite tense up, Max instinctively sat back. “You’re certain?” the gunslinger said, in a low voice. “The People Eater is dead?” 

“People whatnow?”

“The fat man with the fake nose and the lovely personality,” the gunslinger said, with a touch of sharp-tongued impatience. “Is he dead?”

“Yeah. Dead.”

“How sure are you?”

“Pretty fuckin’ sure, mate,” Max said irritably, annoyed by the gunslinger’s open skepticism. “Could call me a firsthand witness.”

“Wait here,” the gunslinger said brusquely, and got up abruptly from the table, and belatedly, Max realised that the tables around him had gone quiet, that no one was looking their way.

Fucking ‘A. Trouble. Max should’ve known. It had been too good to be true after all.

“You got a name?” Max asked curtly, impulsively, and as the gunslinger tilted his head, glancing back at him, Max added, “Max. That’s mine.”

“Arthur,” returned the gunslinger. “Wait here, drifter.”

1.0.

“Keep an eye on him,” Arthur murmured to Ariadne, who was lounging in the far corner of the cantina, and she nodded, her eyes snapping towards the drifter by the door.

“Think he’ll leave?”

“If he does, he’s meat,” Arthur said dismissively, patted Ariadne’s elbow, and strode out into the narrowing underground to find Saito, guests and initiates alike ducking quickly out of his way. 

Saito was meditating in his office: really the maintenance office of one of the network of underground silos that their guests had linked together for them through equal parts ingenuity, desperation and sheer bull-headed stubbornness. A door of sorts had been fashioned out of a sawn-off old van, cold and pitted under Arthur’s touch as he knocked. Underground, the humming pulse of Gas Town felt louder, more claustrophobic, but Arthur leaned his back against a winched up brace of piping and waited.

“Come in.”

Arthur pushed through, folding his hands behind his back. Saito’s office was cramped, crowded in by old steel file cabinets, an anomaly for a world long burned paperless, and not even Arthur knew fully what the cabinets contained. A small plastic potted fern sat balanced on the cabinet closest to the door where Arthur stood, and a narrow steel desk had been pushed near the open exit down to the repurposed silo floor. Cabinets had mostly blocked out the discoloured windows, but through them, Arthur could see that the guests working the scrap sorting floor were winding up for the night, putting away their tools on the large racks welded to the silo walls, shuffling away in a relatively orderly line for the next shift at the cantina.

Saito himself sat straight-backed at his desk, hands folded neatly on the arm rests of the creaky old leather chair, eyes closed. Like the rest of the Preachers, he wore a suit, cleaner and better pressed than most, but still showing wear, threadbare at the hems, shirt yellowing at the collar. His black hair had long started to fade over sun-burned skin, Asiatic features turned ascetic and forbidding by time. 

“Arthur,” said Saito, without opening his eyes, voice a lilting, accented whisper, unrepentantly exotic, defiant against the brogue rampant now in the Strangled World.

“A guest has news from the Citadel,” Arthur said briskly. “Immortan Joe is dead. So is the People Eater. The war bands are trapped in the ravines.”

“What sort of guest?”

“A drifter. Combat trained,” Arthur related, remembering how the drifter had sat, how he had kept his feet flat on the ground, back angled towards a wall. “Fully armed. Came direct from the Citadel. He’s killed at least one person recently. Dried blood on his clothes. Maybe two days’ old.”

“Killed?”

“Gunpowder residue on the hands.” 

Saito hummed to himself. “Did he have anything to do with the Citadel’s change of hands?” 

“Probably. He’s looking for a Pursuit Special,” Arthur added briskly.

Saito frowned, very slightly. “That’s an unusual choice. And very specific.”

Arthur nodded, even though he knew Saito wouldn’t see it. It _had_ been a strange thing for a drifter to say: most drifters would’ve been content with anything that moved, didn’t break down after a klick of eating sand, and preferably didn’t need much guzzoline to keep on kicking. Though, then again, Max was like no drifter Arthur had ever seen: there was something feral about him, something that looked violently broken, but he was unbowed, as though he had been flayed down to his very core and found only flint.

“Scabrous is going to make his move.” Saito said, slow and thoughtful, as though sketching out in his mind a framework of a structure that only he could see, and finally opened his eyes, just a fraction. “He’ll have known by now that something’s gone wrong. Question is whether he makes a move on the Citadel or on Gas Town.”

“Maybe both,” Arthur said neutrally. “Citadel needs Gas Town.” 

“You can’t drink ‘guzzoline’, despite the name. Gas Town needs Citadel’s aquifer more than Citadel needs Gas Town’s resources. _We_ need that aquifer.” Saito steepled his fingers under his chin. “This drifter who comes from the Citadel. Question him. I want to know who now rules the Citadel. I want to know what exactly happened to Immortan Joe, to the People Eater, to the Bullet Farmer. And call Dom to me,” Saito added, when Arthur nodded again.

“We going up against Scabrous?” 

“Not yet.” Saito said, and closed his eyes again. 

Back at the cantina, Arthur noticed first the pointedly empty space where the drifter had been, then Ariadne’s resigned expression, leaning now on the frame through to the ladder up top. “I warned him,” she said, when Arthur got close, then she blinked as Arthur cursed and loped over to the ladder. “You’re going up after him?”

“Saito wants a further word,” Arthur called back, cursed again, and hauled himself quickly up the rungs, only stopping to grab the bow and quiver from beneath the heap of oily rags close to the trapdoor, slinging the quiver over a shoulder. 

It was already dark out, and over the groaning background pulse of Gas Town were the coughing engine roars of Scabrous’ War Boys, riding the night. Arthur pulled his cowl over his head as he hauled himself up onto the roof of the bus. Near the eastward wall, one of the War Boys’ rovers lit up the night with a belch of fire and wild laughter, veering madly around a listing shack.

Max hadn’t gone far: he had hugged the walls, keeping to the shadows, probably trying to find somewhere to shelter down for the night. A good strategy for a normal hostile township, perhaps, but not in Gas Town: Arthur waited, watching, and soon, one of the proximity traps blared out a manic, tinny laugh, hidden in a mud-baked patch on the wall. Max flinched away, startled, then immediately tried to climb to higher ground rather than run away in panic.

Arthur notched an arrow, watching as the closest War Boy rover veered over to check out the alarm. Spotted, Max ducked hastily away from gunfire, running over the humped steps of shipping containers and mud rooftops, drawing a pistol. Pursing his lips, Arthur drew the bow, taking in a breath, holding it firm, and loosed the first arrow.

The fletched shaft took the driver of the rover in the throat, and the car swerved wildly as the driver’s outflung hand caught the wheel, skidding the car up in an awkward flip of tumbling metal and screaming War Boys, mulched against the dirt and the closest shipping container. 

Briskly, Arthur leaped off the bus and jogged over to the wreckage, ignoring the moans of the dying, the stench of burned rubber and gore and voiding bowels, and with a swift jerk of his wrist, retrieved his arrow from the dead man’s throat. Back at the bus, he found Max already waiting, looking a little sheepish.

“She warned me,” Max offered, not quite an apology, not quite resignation. 

“That she did,” Arthur agreed flatly, as he hustled Max down the ladder and made his way down as well, pulling and barring the trap door after him. 

“Lot of War Boys in Gas Town?” Max asked, once they were back in the cantina, which was filling up with the evening shift’s guests.

“Enough of them to be trouble.”

“Won’t they get mad that you killed four’o them?”

“Only if they catch me. Now get a move on,” Arthur said curtly. “You owe me a few more answers for saving your ass.”


	2. Chapter 2

II.

The underground base of this latest breed of crazy people was far bigger than Max had imagined, and he was starting to get antsy all over again, as he followed Arthur through the low-ceilinged warren of tunnels, some hand-dug, some pre-Fall, judging from the evenness of the concrete. Max kept his hands close to his guns and tried to concentrate on memorising the way out. The tattoo on his back was swollen, and rasped painfully against the coarse shirt of his back, and his hand throbbed still from the crossbow bolt.

He was tired, and unsettled, and back underground surrounded by people he didn’t understand: it felt for a moment like time had wound briefly backwards, and Max very nearly changed his mind and turned around. Up above, he understood the rules: kill or be meat. Here, he wasn’t quite sure, and uncertainty in this world of fire and blood now unnerved him.

Finally, Arthur led them both to a long, rectangular room, shored up precariously by struts that looked scavenged from girders and several old refrigerators, doors open, packed full of tools sorted into neat boxes. Between each refrigerator were bunks of a sort, with old mattresses on the floor and a suspended hammock above. The crazies had been in here for the long haul, then. 

And there were more of them than Max had originally estimated: even this deep in the warren, people still occasionally flit past, women, children, men, all in the homemade desert-touched rags common to denizens of the Big Nothing and its townships. Some of the people gave them curious looks as they passed Max and Arthur by, but Max smelled nothing like fear or suspicion or despair, and he relaxed a fraction. 

“Don’t worry,” Arthur said briskly, as he leaned against one of the refrigerators, folding his arms, the bow slung at his back along with the quiver. “We’re not out to get you.”

“That’ll be a new ‘un,” Max drawled. “What d’you want, then? I don’t think I got much more ‘secrets’.”

“You came here from the Citadel. Who’s in charge there now?” 

Max narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t see shit other than that shroud on that Gigahorse?”

“I asked you a question.” 

“Could be I don’t feel like answering,” Max shot back evenly, “Seeing as I don’t see no car mechanic or Pursuit Special.” 

Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, as though swallowing irritation. “Once the day breaks, I’ll take you to the mechanic personally. Satisfied?”

“Let’s wait until the day breaks, then.” Max felt fractionally surprised at himself. Only days ago, he would not have hesitated to give up information like this, to save himself even a little trouble. 

Days ago, he had been willing to leave Furiosa and the others to the dubious mercies of Immortan Joe. 

They had not found the Green Place, in their desperate flight across the wastes, but in failure’s wake, the Big Nothing that hollowed out Max himself seemed to have filled in a little, at the edges. 

Arthur studied Max with an uncomfortably calculating expression, then he smiled, his thin, sharp smile. “We could throw in some salve for your back and your hand. It’s sore, isn’t it? I can see it from the way you’re standing.”

“Not gonna kill me.” 

There was a nod, as though Arthur had expected that response. “Loyalty from a drifter. Never thought I’d see the day. And if Immortan Joe is dead, there’s quite likely only one person in the Citadel who can inspire loyalty like this among men. Imperator Furiosa.”

Max was careful to keep his face blank, but Arthur merely nodded again. “Surely she fled for a reason. Why did she return? It can’t have been purely an elaborate gambit to kill Immortan Joe. She would’ve had an easier time in the Citadel. Or… she tried to return to her home, did she? She’s certainly tried, if more subtly, over the years. Tried to send word through us once. But the lands of the Many Mothers is long gone.”

“Since you know all that,” Max said warily, “Don’t see why you need me.” 

“A little confirmation here and there helps.” Arthur lifted his shoulder into a light shrug. “If you truly are friends, or allies, or whatever it is with Furiosa, however, here’s a free bit of advice. Once the word gets going in Gas Town that the People Eater is dead, Immortan Joe’s third son, Scabrous, will try and take control. He was placed here years ago to keep an eye on the oil supply - has his own gang of War Boys. You’ve already met them up above.”

Max narrowed his eyes. “You think he’ll make a move on the Citadel?”

“It’s not a question of _thinking_ that he will. He will. The Citadel is where the water comes from. And any sort of green produce. A luxury, in Gas Town. And Scabrous likes his luxuries.”

“How many War Boys?”

“Enough.”

Max shrugged, and tried not to wince as the motion made his back hurt all over again. “Not my problem.” 

Furiosa was smart. She’d have known about this threat, and hopefully already started fortifying her position. She _was_ , after all, sitting atop a fortress accessible only through a winched lift, a self-sufficient fortress at that. It didn’t quite need genius to defend, nor could any sort of car or vehicle in this age do much against solid rock. Not that Max had seen, in any case. 

“It may be,” Arthur tipped his head at Max’s backpack. “How much water are you carrying? There’s a great deal of absolutely nothing out there. Even if you do somehow manage to acquire a car. If water gets cut off from the Citadel, you won’t find anyone here willing to sell you a drop.”

“Still trying to see what you’re getting at, mate,” Max said, deciding to break his rule against rudeness just a tad.

“If you care at all about the people you left in the Citadel,” Arthur said, as he pushed away from the refrigerator, “Then we’re going to be your best chance of sabotaging Scabrous’ chances, drifter. Think about it. Sleep where you like. If you want a meal in the morning, you’d best have a secret worth trading.” 

Max sat down on one of the mattresses, watching Arthur go. Then, wincing, he shrugged off his pack, and pulled his grimy jacket and shirt off, studying his back. The tattoos were red, the skin of his back swelling and abraded, but Max merely grit his teeth, checked his injured palm - healing nicely - and put the shirt on again. He curled up, back to the wall, not caring about how this left his legs dangling off the side of the mattress, head on his pack, hand on a loaded pistol, and closed his eyes. He’ll catch a few hours’ rest, then leave quietly in the morning: Max had no intention of getting involved in yet another war.

i.

Saito Katsumoto had once been the richest man in the world.

Now, the life he had before the world had been strangled by dust and fire felt like a fever dream, a half-remembered daze filled with unimaginable luxury. Water from taps! _Hot_ water from taps! Television, the internet, _private jets_ , more food than he could eat… having spent so much of his earlier life travelling the globe, on business, sometimes it felt as though Saito had once been like the _tanchōzuru_ , in flight in the clouds, until fate had hacked off his wings, and drowned him in dust and sand. 

Once, if he had wanted, a phone call from him could have a man ruined across the world, or liberated from prison, or raised into power in any number of countries in the world. Now he lived underground, and his world was one township swallowed by the end of the world. 

If Saito had been a man given overly to regrets, all this knowing would long have killed him. But in all things, Saito was a practical man, and a philosophical one, and the crash of his private plane that had stranded him here, so far from the lands of the Rising Sun, was, in a way fortuitous. For he had survived, and even with nothing to his name in the new world, Saito had even managed to prosper - somewhat. 

“Sure I could get across into the ravines,” Dom said, breaking into Saito’s wandering train of thought. “If the bikers are fighting survivors, that’ll be even easier.” 

“I know that you can get into the ravines,” Saito said patiently, flicking his eyes up at his second in command. Dom’s sandy hair was mostly hidden under his cowl, and he had eschewed a suit, unlike most of Saito’s Preachers, preferring instead a utilitarian combat vest and jacket, a carbine hung against his back, knives at his hips. “I want to know if you can get into the ravines _and_ salvage that War Rig.”

Dom pursed his lips. “Depends on how damaged it is. If it’s totalled, I’m going to need a salvage gang from here. And that’s going to be hard to sneak out from under Scabrous’ nose.”

Saito nodded slowly. “There’s nothing around here quite like that War Rig, not in Gas Town, not in the Bullet Farm. I want that rig. If you have to take a salvage gang, so be it. We’ll have to move before Scabrous consolidates power. Quietly, I think.” 

“Or I could do the salvage run in a big way,” Dom said confidently. “Make a show of strength. Draw out Scabrous and his War Boys. Leaves you room to take over.” 

Saito closed his eyes. “If I had wanted to take over Gas Town I could have done so, years ago. Taking over has never been the point.”

“It might have to be, soon. The People Eater was bad enough. But Scabrous is going to be far worse. Listen,” Dom said gently, “What you want to do? It’s probably possible. If we get a rig, if we set out - maybe, just maybe, we might be able to get what you want. But I really don’t think there’s anything out there to get to anymore, Saito-san. I think this is it. The world’s probably like this everywhere now. Or worse.”

“I would rather try,” Saito retorted firmly, untroubled as always, repeating a line that he had exchanged with Dom, a hundred times, a thousand times since he had been mired in the dust. “Than to die old here, filled with regrets. Go. Prepare for a salvage trip. An armed party. Take whomever you want. Do it subtly, or your way, whatever you prefer. But bring me back that War Rig.”

“All right,” Dom said, resigned. “I’ll do what I can. I’ve got contacts in the ravine gangs. I’ll try and find out what they’re up to as well.”

Saito nodded absently, and waved Dom away, and sank into his chair, thinking over scenarios, over possibilities, over risks and rewards, and was still preoccupied by the time Arthur let himself into the office, looking mildly annoyed.

“Drifter’s a stubborn one,” Arthur said briskly. “But Furiosa is most definitely now the leader of the Citadel.” 

“Not quite a good gambit,” Saito said absently. “She cannot hope to hold all the people in the Citadel up above. She cannot hope to enforce discipline where there has never been any. Unless she abandons all of the people at the foot of her fortress to the War Boys, she will have to fight.” 

“The War Boys and others who are in the ravines,” Arthur guessed. “They’ll take a while to get around the mountains. Two weeks, if they want to drive the distance rather than climb over it. They’ve probably got enough numbers to deal with the bikers. Especially since the heavy vehicles have already been destroyed.”

“They’ll have to drive the distance,” Saito said quietly. “The sandstorms will kill them all otherwise.” 

“Either way,” Arthur summarised, “Unless Furiosa’s inclined to abandon over half of the population, she’ll have Scabrous to deal with first, then the remaining people out there, if any. Hopefully they didn’t take enough supplies to survive a two week detour.”

“Optimism is a bad habit.” Saito said, though he smiled faintly. “If Dom asks you on that salvage trip, go with him.”

“We going after that rig?” Arthur frowned. “Could be wrecked. Could be a mess.”

“We built well, before the world died,” Saito said quietly. “Most things can be fixed.” 

“And you’re the one who thinks that optimism is a bad habit,” Arthur said, hooking his thumbs in his gun belts. “What do you want me to do about the drifter?”

“Do? He is a guest, like the others. If he eats, he pays. If he leaves, he may leave.”

“Might make it faster for us to find this ravine.”

“Perhaps. But I do not trust drifters,” Saito said, for it took a very particular sort of human creature to wander the Big Nothing, alone, with nothing but his own will to keep moving, rather than try to stay somewhere and eke out a living. They were, in his experience, entirely insane. 

“I can keep an eye on him.”

Saito tilted his head, studying Arthur’s unreadable expression. “You are curious about this drifter.”

“I am. I think he’s come a long way to get this far. Out over the Big Nothing. I think he’s worth keeping an eye on, especially where you want to go.”

Saito nodded slowly. He had only ever discussed his plans - and only minimally - with Dom, his right-hand man, but he was unsurprised to find that Arthur had guessed at the root of it. Of all the ‘Preachers’, the untidy name that the sun-blasted denizens of Gas Town called Saito and his Company, Arthur was by far the keenest in his deck of cards, quick as a whip and just as lethal. 

“Then do what you must,” Saito said finally.

“Also,” Arthur added, “I think that we should deal with Scabrous _here_ , on our home ground, instead of duelling with his War Boys and their rovers out on the Wastes. That rig isn’t going anywhere.”

“We do not have the men to assault Scabrous’ position.” 

“I wasn’t thinking about a frontal attack.”

Saito rubbed at his jaw. Arthur, as always, merely radiated a cool, competent strength, even like this. “All right,” Saito said finally. “Dom will take time to put together his salvage gang. If you can come up with a plan to get rid of Scabrous in the meantime, so be it. But I do not want to spend our strength here. Not here, and if I can help it, not in the ravines either. This is only the beginning.” 

“Only the beginning,” Arthur echoed neutrally. “Yes. I know.”

“I heard you killed a brace of rover boys,” Saito added absently.

“Couldn’t help it. They were about to run over the drifter. He set off one of the proxies.”

“Were you spotted?”

“Not that I know of. But they’d probably be able to guess. Not like any of our ‘guests’ would’ve dared do something like that in a shot.” 

“But none of us would’ve set off a proximity alarm,” Saito added. “No matter. If Scabrous contacts me, I’ll smooth it over. Water may be scarce soon. He can’t afford one more distraction.” 

“If the Citadel cuts off Gas Town, _we’ll_ be affected as well. Dew panes only count for so much.” 

“I know. I may have to send an envoy to the Citadel.” 

Ariadne, perhaps. The varying reports of the Gigahorse returning to the Citadel had been quite clear: within the flamboyant vehicle that had once belonged to Immortan Joe, there had been but women, and quite possibly one or two men at most. Drifter women at that, apparently. If Furiosa had returned to power, perhaps with the help of allies from what remained of the Many Mothers, then it was best to be careful.

“Send Ariadne,” Arthur suggested just then, and Saito smiled thinly.

“We will see. Go.”

Arthur inclined his head, and let himself out of Saito’s office. Alone again, Saito got stiffly up from his chair, and turned around, looking out through the glass into the factory floor, which was pitch black; the hooded lamps all blown dark for the night. An age and what felt like a lifetime ago, Saito had singlehandedly built his fortune on the back of an empire of commodities: this was but a smaller scale, of yeast vats, of mushroom farms, of crude water distillers. And in a world where money was now worthless, Saito traded in the two things that people all had to trade: information and worth. 

Now he owned not only most of Gas Town’s denizens, by being the one who fed most of them, but he also knew precisely everything that happened in the township, from Scabrous’ patrol movements, to the names of his War Boys, to their ailments, their joys, their sorrows. It had been a very long time since Saito had chosen to go to war with anyone, in the dead world where there were so few people left that war seemed an immense and grotesque waste of life. But he had been waiting for this for a while, for Immortan Joe to die. The _tanchōzuru_ was waking again. 

Saito opened one of the file cabinets, with a key that he usually kept on a string around his neck, and reached carefully inside, to a small box, wrapped in gray cloth. He placed it on his desk, pulling aside the swaddled old felt, like peeling gray petals away from a flower’s heart, to eventually reveal an old sandalwood box, its surface intricately tiled with interlocking pieces, fastened by tiny sapphire eyes of three different shades. It was a touch of luxury now useless in the dead world, but Saito ran his hands lightly over it, and unlatched the box. Within it, sitting on slowly rotting black velvet, was a Satsuma tokkuri and two choko cups, of dark clay in dark glaze, without the ornate nishikide of the Satsuma yaki of later years: simple, exquisite, old beyond time. 

Saito touched his fingertips to the lip of one of the choko cups, then to the tokkuri, and allowed himself to remember, for a moment, the taste of his favourite sake, of sitting in Kyoto, under the sakura, and then he closed the box, wrapped it back up, and placed it carefully back into the file cabinet, locking it away.


	3. Chapter 3

III.

Max woke up with a start, only barely biting down a choked out whimper, chased out of his dreams by violent dreams and the clamour of the dead. Sweating, disoriented, he fought down nausea and clenched his hand tight around the holster of his gun, curling up until his heart stopped hammering and his breathing evened out. Then, as noiselessly as he could, he shouldered on his backpack, ignoring the pain that sparked down his back like liquid heat, and holstered his gun.

Around him, the room of bunks was full of people, sleeping, snoring, men, women, children. It wasn’t pitch dark: there was a faint glow from the door, allowing Max to pick out the outlines in his room. No one had dared to sleep in the hammock above him, and Max uncurled carefully from under it, getting silently to his feet. He watched the room of sleeping people for a moment, blindsided by the brief bloom of warmth that he felt at this roomful of humanity, all curled in neat rows, peaceful, breathing, warm, rank, noisy, and then Max nodded to them, in a silent farewell, and stole out of the door-

-only to stop dead, blinking dumbly. The light from the corridor beyond came from a partly unhooded lamp at Arthur’s feet. Arthur had his hands folded behind his back, lounging against the wall: no hooded cowl today, dressed in a tan brown short jacket and faded jeans, a collared shirt with two buttons at the throat undone. The bandolier belt was gone, but the twinned pistols were still at his hips. In a world of fire and dust, Arthur looked like he had stepped out of a different age, sleek and lithe and gorgeous, and for a moment, even Max’s deadened soul quickened. 

“You’re just in time,” Arthur drawled, breaking the spell. “Let’s go see your mechanic.” 

“Been waiting long out here?” Max shot back sardonically, and his hands itched for a moment, to get to his guns, but he clenched his fingers tight instead. 

Arthur smiled instead of answering, and hooked up the lantern, turning his back on Max without a second thought. They didn’t start back towards the cantina, and when Max dragged his heels at an intersection, Arthur said, without looking back, “Not that way.” 

Max choked down another retort, glancing longingly down the way out that he knew, then he grit his teeth and followed Arthur down another winding, confusing set of twists and turns, the corridor at time turning claustrophobic, Max’s shoulders scraping against the hollowed out walls, Arthur’s sleek back all that he could see. It felt for a dizzying moment as though he was in another world, away from the sand and the unforgiving sky, fallen into the hot, yeasty, rank gut of some gigantic animal, the occasional multitonal snore of roomfuls of sleeping people like the laboured breaths of some dying beast, echoing through the arteries.

Arthur came to an abrupt stop once, in one of the tunnel intersections. “Go down there,” he said, half-turning, with a nod down the dim corridor. “Use the bathroom.” 

Max stared, absolutely uncomprehending for a long moment. _Bathroom_. The last time he’d used one of those, it had been years ago, when he’d had a house, a wife, a child, years ago before the world strangled itself with dust; it was a word from another time. Arthur mistook his blank stare, and frowned at him. “Don’t you know what that is? Toilet? Latrine?” 

“I… but the water?” Max asked, mystified. 

Days ago, when he had first happened upon Furiosa and the others, hosing down with _water_ in the bloody sun-baked _desert_ , he had stared, utterly convinced for a long moment that he had finally gone stark raving fucking mental. Water was so scarce out in the wasteland of the new world that to use it for anything but to drink seemed unimaginable.

“Not with water,” Arthur said, with a twitch of his mouth. “Go on. Take a look. Don’t worry, there isn’t going to be an ambush or whatever you’re thinking.”

Max stared for a while longer, then he went. It turned out to be a tunnel with a dead end that opened up to the sky, an iron shaft with a grilled top, part open facing the corridor, sunk down at an angle such that sand sifted slowly and constantly down the shaft into a maw beyond. A benched lip had been screwed onto the open lip of the shaft, a roll of something that even looked like paper, hung on a bar beside it, and Max took it all in with a bemused astonishment. That was certainly not paper, though, as he touched it, blinking: it was too smooth, and slightly tacky to the touch, though it still tore easily enough.

Totally thrown, Max went through the motions of a forgotten time in a daze, and didn’t even think about how easy it might be to pry up the grille above and get out onto the sand, right until he was back in the mouth of the tunnel, facing Arthur, who looked him up and down and picked up his lantern again. 

Max’s curiosity brimmed over again, twice in two days now, a bad habit. “That wasn’t paper. Y’need water to make paper.”

Arthur shot a glance over a shoulder at Max, evidently surprised that Max had known that tidbit, and annoyed, Max added testily, “I’m old enough to remember, aye?”

“It’s stone paper,” Arthur said, as though by way of an apology. “Made from stone waste. Totally recyclable. Doesn’t need water to make.”

 _Magic_ , Max thought, a little dazed, disoriented all over again, and maybe it showed: Arthur’s voice took on a faint touch of sympathy. 

“How long have you been out there?” 

“I don’t know,” Max said honestly, and added, when Arthur arched an eyebrow, “The world went bad real quick.” He had been to other townships. Hadn’t he? They hadn’t been like _here_ , organised, no fear-smell, no desperation. Not since the world choked.

“I know. I was a kid when it started to die. But I was old enough to remember it happening,” Arthur offered, and then looked away, just as Max tried to calculate Arthur’s age again in his head and failed. 

He himself had been a boy when the world had gone to war against itself, a young man when he had fallen in love for the first time, married, joined the cops, had a son, a young man when all that had been torn away; older and bitter when he had run into the Oil Refinery, and now… now it felt as though he had been wandering forever, one day at a time, reduced to an exhausted, self-animated handful of eroding memories, a half-ghost in a world of half-ghosts.

“Why’re you all called the Preachers?” Max asked then, as they pushed through into widening corridors, newer ones, hacked out of stone. “You guys like the War Boys? Following some kinda God?”

“No.” Arthur actually smiled at the suggestion, as though amused. “It’s because of the clothes that Mister Saito likes to wear. Suits. The rest of us took after him. Then one of the Gas Town folks, years and years back, came up with the nickname and it stuck. Saito doesn’t like it. Prefers us to be called The Company. Think it reminds him of the old life.”

Companies. Back when businesses had power enough to bestride the world itself, more powerful than actual people, richer than people, and often, treated like people. Thinking about it now felt insane, as though he’d been forced out from a mass hallucination. Max shook his head. “That’s your boss, huh?”

“That’s right.” 

Max struggled to imagine a man whom someone as lethal and put-together as Arthur would follow. Not someone like Immortan Joe, not at all: of that Max was pretty certain: there was a cold logic to Arthur, one that wouldn’t have fallen for fanaticism. Furiosa, perhaps. Someone’s vision had carved out this warren of tunnels, with food to feed anyone who wanted it, with a _bathroom_ , for God’s sake, even a place for people to sleep, all run through some sort of industry that Max couldn’t quite begin to think of. Someone’s vision had collected people like the young girl he had met, like Arthur. Max could not for his life comprehend why anyone out so far in the Big Nothing could still balance enterprise, compassion, and ruthlessness enough to attract ruthlessness. 

“He… that name. Saito.” Max struggled with the pronunciation, murmured it again under his breath. “That’s… j… that’s Japon, isn’t it? Japanese?” Saying the word, _remembering_ it, was like floating up in the dregs of sleep, not quite awake yet, not quite dead. Another scrap of memory from another time.

“That’s right.” Arthur looked faintly surprised this time. 

“Funny world.” Max tried to remember the last time he’d seen someone Japanese, and couldn’t even conjure the memory. 

“Why so?” Arthur’s tone had gone neutral, warily so. 

“How it don’t matter none anymore. Sun burns everyone the same colour.” Max said, still caught up in his futile attempt to pull at past strings. “Funny how it used to matter such a damn.” Or had it? Max’s memories pre-Collapse were increasingly blurry.

“There aren’t enough people left to care,” Arthur said, and was silent, though Max sensed that his vague answer had settled some ruffled feathers. Arthur was protective of his boss. Something to be careful of.

The tunnel eventually emerged up and into a room easily more than twice the size of the chamber that Max had bedded in for the night. Part of the room was a ramp, that led upwards to a huge winched trapdoor, currently shut, and the rest of the room was packed tight with vehicles, twelve of them, from what looked like a small scavenged rover to a pickup truck, some undergoing repairs, some just sitting pretty, idling. All the vehicles were clearly well-cared for. Tools and a workbench lined the other walls in the room, along with spare parts, crates, and cartons of gasoline, and to Max’s left, a cowled man straightened up as they entered, hand going briefly to a pistol by his hip before he relaxed, recognising Arthur.

“Ease up, Nash,” Arthur said, and nodded at Max. “Got a guest. Max, this is Nash. Nash, Max.” 

Nash ignored Max, relaxing back against the wall, even as another man pushed himself out from under the belly of an Impala, wiping his hands on a greasy rag hung at his hip, all baggy overalls and a coarse sackcloth shirt, black oil stains to the elbows. It was the bearded man who had served him at the cantina, and the man grinned at them both. 

“Arthur. Early start.”

“Yusuf. Meet Max. He’s a guest. Got a question for you, paid up.” 

“Got a Pursuit Special?” Max asked almost inaudibly, still a little overawed by the choice in the room, the smell of gasoline, of engine oil and steel. 

“They didn’t make all that many of those.” Yusuf said apologetically. “Got better, though.” He glanced at Arthur, who said nothing. “If you’re a Ford man, here’s something tricked up off the shell of a Ford Falcon Cobra.” 

Yusuf wound through the line of cars, and patted one at the end. The car had once been orange, judging from the scratches of paint that still lingered on its flanks, its windows and roof pitted and dented, but it _looked_ like his V8 Interceptor, nitro boosted, spikes welded onto its back and around the rims, built for tyre shredding, a pneumatic harpoon gun mounted to one side, slightly outsized wheels mounted beneath the car for rough terrain and a fanged ramming grill of a bumper guard. 

“Sweet looking ride,” Max said, after a long moment spent openly admiring Yusuf’s handiwork, touching the flank of the car reverently.

“Damn well should be,” Yusuf said proudly. “That’s my Magnum Opus. Faster than any piece of junk out there, easy on the turns, not too oil hungry: my own version of a V8. If we didn’t need all the panels for The Project,” Yusuf added, a little reproachfully, “I probably could’ve refitted her engine, too.” 

“Yusuf’s a genius,” Arthur said unnecessarily. 

Reluctantly, Max pulled his hand away. “Don’t suppose you people trade secrets for something like this.” 

“‘Course not,” Yusuf said, offended. “We don’t-“ He caught Arthur’s eye, swallowed the rest of his words quickly, and shuffled off back to his repairs. 

“That ravine where you left the War Boys and the rest behind,” Arthur said neutrally. “Know how to get back to it?”

“Gonna be rough. Through the sandstorm.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Yeah. I know how to get back.” 

“You any good with that gun?”

Max could see where this was going. Warily, he acknowledged, “Good enough.” 

“Stick around,” Arthur said, patting a palm against the hood of the car. “You can eat for free, over the next three days. Don’t mess with anyone here and no one will mess with you. After that, if you still want this car? We can talk.”

2.0.

Arthur hadn’t been surprised when Dom asked him during breakfast to be on the salvage team. _Dom_ was surprised when Arthur mentioned wanting to take Max along.

“A drifter? You sure?”

“I want him to drive the Opus.”

Dom frowned at Arthur. “What? That’s the best car we’ve got.”

“I’ll be in the car too, if you’re worried. He’s a survivor, Dom,” Arthur said quietly. “This thing that we’re going to do for Saito? I think we need people like that. We’ve fought back raiding parties, skirmishes with the War Boys, sure. But we’ve done nothing like what we’re about to do. The more people we can get who won’t shoot themselves in the foot with a gun, the better. We’re short-handed, remember?”

“We’ve got enough for a salvage team,” Dom said, though he didn’t look convinced. 

“We do, if we leave Gas Town with a skeleton crew. Who’s to say something wrong won’t happen while we’re out?”

“Who would try?” Dom said, forever convinced of everyone’s inner rational sanity despite years of evidence to the contrary. “We feed most of Gas Town. The people won’t allow it.”

“That’ll be a comfort when everything’s destroyed. The War Boys are a death cult, remember? And they’re hardly an anomaly. Lots of crazies around here.” 

“True,” Dom said reluctantly. 

Dom was a strange one: he had been Saito’s right hand man since the beginning - had been Saito’s pilot, apparently, flying the jet that had crashed in the Big Nothing, years ago, when the engines had failed in a sandstorm. A freakstorm, Dom had said of it once. Damn fucking things are _normal_ now. 

While Saito had adapted, Dom had not: there was always something desperately missing about the man, something that felt dazed, as though Dom functioned on the perpetual impression that he lived in a nightmare, that sometime soon he would wake up. It had worsened when Mal had died: beautiful, competent, elegant Mal, who could not understand why the world had died, who missed her home, a city of lights over an ocean away, who had never quite forgiven her husband for flying the plane that had stranded them and their employer so far away from everything they knew, all the way to the bloody end.

“Besides, I shoot better than I drive,” Arthur added, and finally raked up a tiny smile from Dom, a tired one.

“That you do. All right. Bring the drifter if you want. Make sure he’s toilet trained and all that.”

“More or less sure,” Arthur said, remembering Max’s shock at the bathroom corridor, and for a moment, pity warred with amusement. “Got something else I want to do.”

Dom may be tired and worn, but he was still quick: he glanced around the cantina, which was filing away, swapping soon with the next shift, and lowered his voice. Saito might feed all these people, but the Preachers knew better than to trust strangers with _their_ own secrets. 

“You want to take Scabrous out? Before we leave?”

“Yeah.”

“Got a plan?”

“Working on it.” 

Dom sighed, and rubbed a palm against his temple. “I knew it.”

“I _said_ I was working on it.” 

“We could run a Mister Charles-“

“Dom,” Arthur said patiently, “Saito wants you to get the salvage gig running. So you do that. _I’ll_ deal with Scabrous.”

“By yourself?”

“Obviously not.” 

“Ariadne?”

“She’s going to the Citadel, I think.” Arthur said, and Dom nodded.

“Good choice. Her mother was one of the Many Mothers, wasn’t she? From way back?”

“Yeah. One of the survivors.” It was how the Preachers had known that the Many Mothers’ lands had failed. Ariadne’s family had not quite survived the ravine crossing: only her mother had made it out, stumbling into Gas Town, collapsing near the bus entrance, child wrapped still in her arms, and there she had died. Dom had been the one to find the little girl. 

“Pity we never knew her name.” Dom said soberly. “All right, no Ariadne. We’ll need Yusuf for certain. Nash?”

“I’m still thinking about it.” 

“Does it involve arson?”

“No! And that was only _once_.”

Dom eyed Arthur suspiciously, as though expecting him to break down and confess to wanting to burn down the main refinery, then he nodded slowly. “Well. Take care, all right? I need you for the salvage run. And your crazy drifter.”

“I always take care,” Arthur said dismissively, and rose from the table.

“But you think that you always know better,” Dom shot back tiredly. “And out here? That’s not a great survival trait, even if it hasn’t yet come through to bite you in the ass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those who are slightly in touch with the Mad Max franchise would recognise the car, Gas Town, and Scabrous from the upcoming Mad Max game. Here’s the car:
> 
>   
>    
> 


	4. Chapter 4

IV.

Max was rudely awoken by someone prodding him in the knee. As he rocketed awake, scrabbling for his gun, he found it pinned, and panicked instinctively for a moment before his brain woke a fraction, and recognised Arthur standing over him, lit dimly by the mostly hooded lantern he was carrying.

“Get up,” Arthur said curtly, and stepped off the gun, leaving the communal bedroom briskly. 

Disoriented and confused, Max rubbed his eyes, then he holstered his gun and got reluctantly to his feet. He couldn’t quite tell what time it was as he slunk out of the room, leaving the choral snores and breaths of the slumbering ‘guests’ behind, scratching at the days’ old growth of stubble on his jaw. 

This time, Arthur wasn’t lounging against the wall, and he seemed dressed for battle, in a long cracked charcoal leather trench, knee-length, the bandolier of ammunition across his chest, a pouched belt added to the twinned pistols at his hips, a knife strapped to one thigh. “Something up?” Max guessed. 

“Scabrous just left en masse for the Citadel.” Arthur grimaced, starting to head down the corridors. “We miscalculated. Thought he would reinforce his position in Gas Town.”

“No town without water.” Max pointed out, stifling a yawn. “What the fuck does this have t’do with me?”

Arthur half-turned, arching an eyebrow. “Saito’s ordered us to ride out on Scabrous’ tail. Don’t you want to help your Citadel friends?”

“They’re sitting pretty where they are. Only one way up. What can he do?”

“Murder all the Citadel folk living at the foot?”

Max shrugged heavily. “Ain’t my friends.”

Arthur came to a complete stop, and turned on his heel, eyes narrowed, and Max stared back evenly, for a long, silent moment. When Arthur said nothing else, Max asked, “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“You want that car?”

“Not that badly.” Max said honestly. He’d learn that lesson quickly enough in the Big Nothing. Heroes were people who died stupid deaths. “Look. There’s too fuckin’ many people at the Citadel anyway-“

“So this is what, an acceptable culling?” Arthur’s lip curled, and Max stared back, personally surprised. He’d met people in the Waste who cared about their friends, sure, and their family. But he’d never met someone who cared about strangers. Not any more.

“You got the strength to fight Scabrous head on?” 

Arthur shrugged. “Not head on, no. But the Citadel has its own defenses, I should think.”

“Aye,” Max grunted, “Bet it runs something like, ‘There’s only one fuckin’ way up so fuck you all’.”

Strangely, that actually got a quick smile from Arthur. “Even so.”

“You guys need that water,” Max guessed. “If Furiosa cuts Gas Town off, everyone dies.”

“There is that, yes. Besides,” Arthur added blandly, “It isn’t true that the lift is the only way up. It’s just the easiest.”

“Got the be fuckin’ crazy to try and climb.”

“And the War Boys struck you as the pinnacle of sanity, did they?” 

True. Max shifted his weight on his feet, uneasily, thumbs shoved into his belt. “After this, I get to keep the car?”

“We’ll see.”

“Not comforting.”

“Probably wouldn’t be comforting either if I went out there on my own and got it totalled,” Arthur said innocently. As Max blinked at that, starting to waver, Arthur’s voice dropped a pitch, into a low purr, and he took a step all the way up into Max’s personal space, touching his fingertips to Max’s unshaven cheek, five spots of impossible warmth. “And wouldn’t that be a shame.” 

Frozen, Max could only stare, as his deadened blood quickened, and he wondered if he was starting to flush, the way Arthur smiled, like the flash of a knife in a slashing arc. “Don’t seem like you’re that sort of fuck up,” Max breathed, and felt like he was being hypnotised, staring into Arthur’s eyes, unsure whether he should back off or pull Arthur closer or-

“Maybe. I’ve already been wrong about Scabrous.” Arthur’s fingers trailed teasingly down to Max’s neck.

“Might be wrong about me too,” Max pointed out, and almost tried not to breathe. “Thinking that I give a fuck.”

“Don’t you?” Arthur asked quietly, and stared up at Max for a disorienting moment longer. 

Arthur was… _smaller_ than Max was, not just shorter, but whipcord lean, not delicate in the least, and when Max breathed deep, he caught only leather and dust and gun oil. His mouth watered, and he swallowed, clearing his throat to cover it, and perhaps Arthur noticed: there was that sharp, quick smile again, as he dropped his fingers and stepped away from Max. Then Arthur turned again on his heel, heading down the corridor, as though not caring whether Max followed or went back or stayed frozen on the spot, and for a long moment Max was sorely tempted to go back to sleep, to walk away. Redemption, loyalty and all that had never quite been his kind of music.

It had been Furiosa’s. 

And Max had given blood to save her, told her his name, and it was Furiosa who had dragged him back from the brink, in the gray sliding purgatory between humanity and the beasts, had forced him to look again at the world and _care_. As he stood, blinking dumbly at the fading light, he flinched as he heard a little girl’s whisper in his mind-

 _Daddy, c’mon, dad-_

-except he’d never had a little girl, his hindbrain told Max desperately; Max had had a little _boy_ , who had not called him ‘Daddy’, for that was a term not well-used in this part of the world, which loved to take a knife to language itself, shortening every spoken word-

 _you’ll let them all die again, won’t you? Won’t you?_ -

Dizzy for a moment, Max sucked in a shaky breath, taking an involuntary step forward, and the taunting little voice in his mind ceased, made him blink, nearly stagger before he righted himself with a palm slapped against the wall. Further ahead, Arthur paused, glancing back at Max curiously, but thankfully said nothing, waiting instead, as Max gulped in a thankless breath, then straightened up and followed, shaking his head in the vain hope of shaking out his phantoms. 

Yusuf’s garage was full of people, gearing up, getting into vehicles, while a blonde man in a combat jacket and fatigues stood on a box, barking directions. He frowned at them both when they emerged, stared hard at Max, then at Arthur, who smiled his unreadable smile back. 

“You sure?” Combat Jacket asked, when they got close. 

“I’m sure.” Arthur glanced back at Max. “Max, this is Dom, our fearless commander.”

“Hardly,” Dom scowled. “I’m shit scared and if I know Furiosa we’re probably not only contending with Scabrous but with traps that she’d have seeded around the Citadel, if she’s as smart as Mister Saito thinks she is.”

Max said nothing. It had only been a handful of days since he had left the Citadel, and Furiosa had been barely able to stand, weak from blood loss and her injuries. Arthur, however, shrugged. “So we let Scabrous and his boys be our forward scouts.”

“I don’t want to engage them in open warfare,” Dom said grimly. “They’ve got more manpower and firepower than us, and they’re all crazy. The best plan is to hang back, see what they do, keep out of their way, and snipe the fuckers if they try and scale the Citadel. But if we do that, the people living at the feet of the Citadel die. So it's not like we have any choice. We'll have to pick at them, try and get their attention before they kill everyone.”

“Scabrous will turn on us sooner or later.” Arthur predicted. “War Boys aren’t exactly known for their patience. We’ll be easier targets, and a death cult's only really interested in one thing.” 

“That might be the point, it seems,” Dom said gloomily. “Mister Saito wants to prevent a massacre. So upwards and onwards. And watch your back,” Dom added, with a pointed stare at Max. 

“I always watch my back,” Arthur said blithely, and led Max to the front of the line, where Yusuf was glumly buffing the flank of the Opus with his greasy rag.

“Try not to destroy her, all right?” Yusuf said plaintively, then he blinked as Arthur got into the front passenger seat. “Wait. The _drifter’s_ driving? Can he even drive?”

“We’re about to find out,” Arthur said blandly, even as Max nodded at Yusuf and let himself into the driver’s seat. 

The car purred to life with a low and hungry growl, as he turned the key in the ignition, and Max felt the thrill of it shake through him, took a deep lungful of metal, of gasoline. He stroked his palms lovingly over the wheel, wrapped with strips of cloth and leather, and as he settled back into the seat, he felt as though he was falling backwards, in time, to a more complicated year, when he had more wants, more cares, and when dust hadn’t yet swallowed the winding road. 

Then Yusuf stepped aside, and pulled a lever on the wall; there was a groaning hiss as the huge trapdoor slid aside, opening up the ramp to the dawn-streaked sky.

3.0.

Arthur checked the back seat for ammunition, found the usual care package, and calibrated the harpoon sights as they roared out into the desert morning, at the point of Saito’s mismatched cavalry. Unlike Nash and the others, driving one of Yusuf’s nitro-hopped monsters didn’t make his blood pound, and he was content to leave it to Max, who was openly enjoying himself anyway, eyes fixed on the horizon. The Citadel loomed high in the distance, with a cloud of dust before it that signalled Scabrous’ location, and Arthur picked up the binoculars in the pack, lifting them to his eyes.

“He’s had an hour’s head start,” Arthur said absently. “Going hell for leather.”

There was only a grunt from Max, and Arthur scanned through Scabrous’ ranks. Immortan Joe’s son had brought out his entire deck, as far as Arthur could tell - all the rovers that terrorised Gas Town’s streets at night, and more: the two Acca Daccas, converted dump trucks encrusted with spikes and ramming teeth, the Hoon Dog - once a mobile wrecking ball, and even the M’oath, a monster truck with reinforced wheels. Still, Arthur couldn’t quite see how Scabrous intended to get _in_ to the Citadel, unless he climbed-

“So. Are we fucked?” Max asked conversationally.

“You can make out their number?”

“Don’t need to. I can read the dust.”

“Fair enough." 

“Do you and the others actually have a plan, or is what I heard about it?”

“Dom’s always either given to overly elaborate plans or overly simple ones, I’m afraid.”

“Fuckin’ shambles,” Max muttered. “I’m not that interested in carking it so early, so d’you mind if I have a go?”

“Feel free.”

“How good are you with that big boy in the back?”

Arthur glanced back at the sleek black Colt M4 Carbine. “I’m good for half a klick.”

“Right on. Rather than running into them head on, if this old girl’s as fast as I think she is, I think we can circle ‘round, maybe get close enough for you to take a few shots. They peel out on our tail, we give them the run-around. Try potting the small fast ones and I think we’ll be good for doing a number on the slower ones. We can keep our distance, keep chipping at those.”

“ _That’s_ your plan?”

“Don’t knock it, mate. You got better? Let’s hear it.”

Arthur did not in fact have ‘better’, because, as Dom mentioned, the best plan would’ve been to let Scabrous head right in to the Citadel, hopefully losing a few cars to traps, and then engage him while he was trying to scale the walls - but then the War Boys would’ve run over any number of Citadel denizens by that point. They had no choice.

“Suppose not.”

“‘Sides, if the point is to _prevent_ the War Boys from running over people, there’s no other way, yeah?”

“All right, drifter,” Arthur leaned back, to take the carbine from the back seat and load it. “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s go fuck up some War Boys.”

Max’s lips peeled back into a smile that was part snarl as he hunched forward over the wheel. “A _men_.”

The Opus slapped Arthur back in his seat as Max revved to top gear, peeling away from the pack. Scabrous could only go as quickly as the slowest in his war party, which meant they were trundling along beside the Hoon Dog, and Arthur slid back the sun roof, leaning out, bracing the carbine against shoulder and the roof of the car, squinting into the scope.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Max took the car closer, veering around in a wild arc, until they were eating the War Boys’ dust, until Arthur could see the pale, painted skin of the War Boys in the closest rover, driver in the front, lancers at back. Max swung up, until they were to the left of the rover, keeping pace, slowing, and Arthur breathed in again, held it in, lined up a shot. 

The first cold shot bit the dust, but the second painted arterial spray against the driver seat window, causing the rover to veer wildly around and smash full-tilt into the next rover, a blot of fire roaring up from poorly secured tanks and jury-rigged nitro engines. Arthur breathed out, then back in, as Max took the Opus out on a sharp tangent, squealing away over the dirt as four rovers swerved out after them, the War Boys jeering and slamming fists on the dented sides of their rides, a drumming din over the diesel roar.

A wild shot whistled past, but Arthur was calm, within, without, lining up another shot, firing, the stock slapping back against his shoulder. A lancer with his explosive-tipped weapon upraised slumped over, the lance dropping into the front passenger seat, and the rover ignited, upturning, scuffing a wave of dust in its funeral shroud.

The spent shell tinkled down below as Arthur lined up a second shot. The rovers scattered, catching up, and this time Arthur didn’t bother to spend time lining up the perfect shot: he fired, handguard heating up as the carbine stitched a line across the closest rover, into the fuel tank strapped open to its back. Another fireball, but Arthur didn’t have time to watch: he hastily ducked into the Opus as shots whistled overhead, the rovers already close enough to return fire. 

One drew level, but even as Arthur struggled to aim the carbine in the small space, Max braced his wrist and fired his pistol, one shot, for the driver, a second, for the fuel tank, and Arthur winced at the flare of heat as the rover imploded, fell back, War Boys shrieking as the fire consumed them. Leaving the carbine cradled in his lap, Arthur drew one of his Glocks as Max took the Opus in a tight turn around, swerving right across the path of the last rover, just enough of an opening window for Arthur to fire two shots through the windscreen and take out the driver, then a last shot for the tank as momentum swung them alongside in an arc.

“Got their attention,” Arthur said, as bikes and rovers peeled away from Scabrous’ pack, heading towards them. “Might want to let the others have some of the fun.”

Max coughed out something that might have been a laugh, as he accelerated back towards Dom’s party, but Ariadne was already coming to meet them, straight-backed on her dirt bike, lobbing one of Yusuf’s grenades into the back of a rover as she flashed past. Two War Boy bikes gave chase, but Arthur didn’t have the time to watch or worry: Max swerved again, to swing Arthur’s firing arc neatly alongside another rover, and he stitched a row of bullets across it, too low to get the tank, even as the lancer shrieked incoherently and threw a lance. Max braked hard, hand clenched on the handbrake, and momentum took the car on a squealing, wild drift, the lance exploding a harmless puff of sand far too close, grit spattering against the windshield.

Arthur wasn’t someone who was easily impressed. But he still blinked as Max changed gear, revving the car forward, lunging behind the rover, and this time, Arthur got the tank, the fireball nearly singing his eyebrows from this distance.

“Fuck, you’re good,” Arthur said, as they slung around, and from within the car, Max bit out a hoarse laugh. 

At the front of Scabrous' team, the lead rover abruptly exploded, within clear sight of the Citadel - mines on the road, as Arthur had thought. The other lead rovers peeled away to the flanks, as the Acca Daccas advanced instead, their ramming teeth dipping into the ground, like ploughs, slowing further, to rake up a safe road, and behind them, the M’oath turned in a flare of flamethrowers along its flanks, like a great beast of fire rounding on parasites, the black hull of the monster truck painted bright at the rims with blue flames, a belt of skulls nailed to its flanks. Through the windscreen, the hulking, muzzled pale form of Scabrous Scrotus, Immortan Joe’s only surviving son, glared at the Company with an incandescent fury.

“I am Immortan Joe Returned!” roared Scabrous, in a ringing voice that set his remaining War Boys to wild cheering and salutes. “Behold the Hammer of the Valkyrie!” 

“Oh fuck,” Arthur breathed, as Scabrous leaned up through the sunroof of the M’oath, dragging a fucking _rocket launcher_ up into view. “Go! Go!” 

The Opus accelerated, but Scabrous hadn’t been aiming at them, but at the tight knot of converted pickups following Nash. They scattered, at Dom’s hollered command, but too late - there was a meaty, metallic _thunk_ , and what looked like a pillar of fire flipped Nash’s pickup casually in the air, like flicking away a toy, to roll uncontrollably into the dirt. 

“If he’s got enough shots in that,” Max bit out from the driver’s seat, as they pulled quickly out of firing range, “Then he doesn’t need to climb the fucking aquifer!” 

“He’ll destroy the only source of pure water in this part of the Big Nothing?” 

“You’re the one who keeps saying that they’re a death cult!”

“Fuck,” Arthur muttered, as Dom gave the signal to back off, the rovers clustering back towards the Acca Daccas in a protective perimeter. Sweeping for mines had slowed Scabrous down to a crawl, but that didn’t matter: the moment Scabrous was in firing range of the Citadel, the game was up-

“I got ‘nother plan,” Max offered, as he coasted carefully out of range, watching as Scabrous sat back down in the M’oath and turned it about. “It’s not a great one, though.”

Ah, why the hell not. It wasn’t as though Arthur had many options left. “Let’s hear it.”


	5. Chapter 5

V.

If Max had to admit it, he did not actually have a plan. What he did have was a percentage of a plan, somewhat, but it was still gratifying to have Arthur’s full attention. All that ruthless purpose, centred forward: it made Max swallow, mouth dry, and he coughed to cover it, keeping an eye on Scabrous’ pack.

“He don’t actually have a lotta shots or he would’ve taken a coupla others while he was still in range,” Max guessed, “Bet he’s hoping we’ll back off so he can conserve the rest. Where’d you get your ammo and that big rifle?” 

Pistols, hunting rifles and shotguns were common enough, their ammo was scarce and growing scarcer, but monsters like that military-grade gun that Arthur cradled were rare, and that rocket launcher, even rarer. 

“Same place all guns like this come from: the Bullet Farm,” Arthur shrugged. “I cast and jacket my own bullets. We make the gunpowder ourselves. We synthesize the sulphur from what we steal out of the refinery, mine the saltpeter, and make the charcoal. Not as efficiently as the Bullet Farm, but enough that we don’t have to trade for ammunition.”

Max let Arthur’s clipped explanation wash over him, as Scabrous trundled ever closer to the Citadel. They were close enough now to see the greenery at the cliff tops, and just as Max thought, the lift was up. No cluster of War Boys or any guards of any sort watching the incoming parties, though, and on the ground floor, the tens of thousands of people who lived within the shadow of the Citadel were clustered close in milling crowds to the cliff walls, leaving an open space at the central road.

“Something’s not right,” Arthur said, frowning up at the Citadel. “Where are the War Boys who run the huge pulley?” The great metal stepped coils leashed to the huge lift were empty. 

Max grunted. The problem of the Citadel was a relatively distant one, compared to the immediate problem of Scabrous. “Got to get rid of those two trucks in the front. Traps might get the big boy then.” 

“That’s your plan? If we drive in front of the Acca Daccas… _we’ll_ probably blow up.”

“Gonna have to bring them down anyway-“ Max began, and trailed off as the girl who’d met him at the bus streaked forward, darting past one of the destroyed rovers that had flipped on its side, grabbing a lance, and accelerating towards the rover closest to the flank of the monster truck. 

“Ariadne - shit!” Arthur shoved back the sun roof, leaning up again. “Get me closer to the M’oath. The monster truck,” he explained impatiently, when Max stared blankly. 

“That rocket launcher-“

“Let’s hope you’re right about conserving shots.” 

Max muttered a curse under his breath and floored the accelerator, changing gear as he took the Opus on an arc back towards Scabrous’ pack. Ariadne had sped closer, skidding in sharp jags to avoid gunfire, until, impossibly, she’d gotten close to toss the lance into the rover. It exploded, the blast ramming the the smaller car into the side of the M’oath, but not actually slowing down the big vehicle, even as Ariadne sped away, two rovers hot on her heels. From the back of the M’oath, a War Boy took aim - only to slump back as Arthur squeezed off a shot.

The rovers after Ariadne had opened up a gap in the M’oath’s protective wall. Max swung the Opus alongside, and was about to shout instructions to Arthur, but Arthur was already firing, a neat stitch of bullets that took out one of the outsized tyres under the monster truck, sending it skidding in a drunken arc, crushing one of its rover escorts under the front wheels. Arthur fired again in a barking staccato, as Max pulled away, and the front wheel facing Max also blew out, the remains tangling up with the rover under its weight, the truck’s momentum pulling it to a stop.

There was a roar of fury from within the M’oath, and Scabrous emerged again, loading his rocket launcher. “Get me closer!” Arthur said sharply.

“ _What_?” 

“Closer! The other side!” 

Max grimaced but obeyed, veering to avoid the first launched rocket, the kick from its impact in the dirt actually slamming the Opus forward a notch, but even as Scabrous struggled to reload, they had swung around to the listing side. Dom and the others had caught up, harrying the rovers into skirmishes, but Max ignored them, swerving around a rover and a chevy locked with grappling hooks, over to the flank of the monster truck.

“Get ready to accelerate out,” was all the warning Max got before Arthur fired the harpoon mounted on the top of the Opus. The spear sped out, a fishtail of rope behind it, and jammed into the flank of the M’oath, attaching fast.

“Shit! Are you crazy?” Max demanded, though he accelerated, the Opus straining at its tether, an awful moan of metal grinding out from the harpoon mount. Arthur didn’t answer, as the M’oath groaned, laying down cover fire instead, forcing Scabrous to duck out of sight. Max swung around to empty his magazine out of the window, taking out an approaching rover, and the engine roared with a nitro-boosted snarl, as impossibly, the monster truck started to tip- 

Another car swerved up alongside - Dom’s Mustang - and it too fired its harpoon, attaching itself further up along the same flank of the M’oath, then accelerating, Dom at the wheel, his gunner desperately trying to keep rovers at bay. They couldn’t keep this up, not with the numbers around them, and as Max began to try to tell Arthur to cut the rope, Dom’s car abruptly smashed wildly to the side, clumped around a wrecking ball. The momentum was the last straw, though, as much as the harpoon line from Dom’s car snapped free and the wrecked car went rolling, to Arthur’s cry of dismay - the M’oath toppled onto its side, with a groan and a scream of metal, and under him, the Opus leaped forward, as Arthur cut their line. 

“Get me alongside one of those rovers!” Arthur snapped, and Max obliged, drifting the car sharply at an angle, slewing to a stop and taking Arthur up against the wreck of the rover that he had just downed. Arthur slipped down from the sunroof, opening the passenger door and grabbing up one of the lances that had been thrown clear onto the sand, and then he slammed the door close and slipped up again, even as Max revved up again, guessing what Arthur was about to do, swinging the Opus back full-tilt towards the downed M’oath.

Scabrous was squeezing out, spitting and cursing, dazed on his feet as he struggled with his launcher, and as Max slowed on the pass, Arthur threw the lance, spearing it through Scabrous’ chest. The explosion rocked the M’oath with a stench of charred meat, hair and metal, and Max slammed his palm against the wheel with a whoop of triumph as they sheared away, racing out over the sand. 

The remaining War Boys still fought to the death, including those in the Acca Daccas, and it was dirty, filthy work, cleaning up. Dom had somehow escaped unscathed, if bruised, though his gunner hadn’t been so lucky, and stood on the back of one of the Acca Daccas, directing the repurposing of any still-usable rovers and the two Acca Daccas. They weren’t moving forward, however.

Max pulled up alongside. “What’s the hold up?” he called up to Dom. 

“Mission accomplished,” Dom returned, frowning down at him.

Max jerked his thumb at the silent Citadel. “That look like ‘Mission Accomplished’ to you?”

Dom frowned at the Citadel, then he shrugged. “If we keep going forward, we’re going to have to use these two to clear off the mines. And that’s only going to look hostile. Whatever’s happened, we can’t help with the lift down. We’ve got injured and I’ll also like to get a salvage team over to get the M’oath and maybe some of the other rovers. I’ve got a big peace flag in the back of the Mustang, if it isn’t burned. We’ll stick that on one of the Accas and wait for the Citadel to make its move.”

“Send the injured back,” Arthur told Dom. “I’ll wait out here with Max. Right now we kinda look like a war party ourselves. Leave the flag. Use the Accas to tow back the M’oath.”

“But-“

“Besides, I think Max knows Furiosa.” 

At Max’s nod, Dom frowned, then he shrugged. “All right. I’ll stay. And Ariadne as well. Frank and the others can get the movable salvage and the injured back to base.” 

Max killed the engine, as Dom climbed down and went over to the Mustang to grab the white flag from the back. He didn’t bother to watch, getting out of the Opus instead, leaning in what little shade it gave, as Arthur closed the sunroof and hopped out as well. 

“We made a good team,” Arthur said, with his sharp little smile.

“We didn’t die, I guess,” Max said, and patted the hood of the Opus as the Acca Daccas started to turn laboriously away, back to face Gas Town. Survivors were already winching ropes and grapples from the Accas to the M’oath, leashing it in place. “It’s gonna get real hot out here soon.”

“We got tents in the back. And food and water.” 

Max found he was starving, all of a sudden, and so they ate some sort of fungus biscuit and shared a bottle of water, sitting in the shade of the Opus, watching the salvage get underway. Through it all, though, Max couldn’t help but risk the occasional uncomfortable glance at the silent Citadel.

a.

Ariadne was having an _awesome_ day.

She’d been out on Dom’s scouting parties before, and once on one of Arthur’s raids, but nothing had been quite like this, a mad dash across the sand to try and save another township. Somehow they had even _won_ , though there had been casualties: they’d lost four of their own cars and most people hadn’t gotten away without some sort of injury. Still. The Big Nothing burned sentiment to flint.

They’d burned the dead, piling up the bodies against one of the rover wrecks and turning it into a pyre with one of the gasoline tanks in the wreck, and although most had turned away from the fire Ariadne had watched, sober, until the fire had eaten away War Boys and Preachers alike to ash. Then she had walked over to the tent strips strung up between the Opus and her dirt bike, to sit down in the shade with Dom, Arthur and the drifter. The afternoon wind made the heat of the day somewhat more bearable, and the white pennant fluttered in the breeze, jammed up on one of the rover wrecks. 

Dom was talking quietly to Arthur, so Ariadne introduced herself to the drifter instead. “Ariadne,” she said, holding out a hand.

“Max,” the drifter offered, after a moment’s hesitation, shaking it. His grip was firm, but he withdrew his hand quickly, and glanced back over at the Citadel. 

“Good driving,” Ariadne told him, when Max seemed intent on ignoring her, and he glanced back at her, as though startled that she was even talking to him. “Where’d you pick that up?”

“Here and there.” Max said evasively. “Crazy thing you did, attacking those rovers head on like that.” 

“Didn’t see any other way to draw them away from the M’oath. Thought they’d be tempted to go after a lone biker. ‘Specially a woman.” Ariadne’s lip curled. War Boys had been the reason why Saito had insisted on all female Preachers learning some form of combat training - and preferably, dressing in clothes that wouldn’t advertise their gender, above ground. Evil bastards.

“Was a good call.” Max nodded, and said nothing at all about her age, or about her sex, instead looking back over at the Citadel, as though it were magnetic. 

“Haven’t seen it quiet like that before,” Ariadne offered.

“You been in there?”

“Nope. Wasn’t safe before. Immortan Joe liked to kidnap girls. Scabrous used to do raids around Gas Town now and then. Check out the young.” Ariadne warmed to her topic, as the drifter merely stared gravely at her. “One of his wives was from Gas Town. He stole a couple of the rest from here and there. War parties. Who was the one who got him?” 

“Furiosa,” Max said absently, then corrected himself. “Joint effort. Furiosa and the wives.” 

“Sounds like you guys were friends?” 

Max didn’t answer, glancing back at the Citadel instead, and finally, he murmured, “Yeah.”

Giving Max up as a bad job, Ariadne peered at Arthur instead. “How long are we gonna wait out here?”

“I’ll give it until nightfall,” Dom said. “We don’t have the supplies for longer, and it’ll get way too cold too quick.” 

“Think a revolt happened? Maybe Scabrous got word in ahead,” Ariadne guessed. It was what she would’ve done. Rather than using rocket launchers, or try scaling the cliffs, she would have snuck a message into the Citadel during the night, somehow. With the lifts going up and down every day, according to their Gas Town lookouts, taking up whoever wanted to look in the Citadel, it would’ve been easy enough, to try and rally the remaining War Boys, take over the Citadel from within and lower the lift. 

“If it did,” Arthur said blandly, “The lift’s still up. That’s a good sign.” 

“Or maybe everyone’s dead,” Dom said gloomily.

“Statistically improbable,” Arthur muttered, which wasn’t much help either.

“Furiosa was hurt bad when she got back,” Max volunteered. “She brought a couple of Vuvalini with her, but that was about it. Survivors,” Max explained, when Ariadne stiffened. 

“The Vuvalini came with her?”

“She’s one of them,” Arthur shrugged. “And their lands are gone. Stands to reason that if she was making a play for the Citadel, they’d come as well.” 

“Y’know,” Max said dryly, “You probably could’a saved some people a hella lot of pain, if you’d told Furiosa that the Green Place was gone.” 

“She contacted us once - long before she became Imperator, to send a message to the Vuvalini. But our outriders never came back,” Dom explained. “And then Furiosa became Immortan Joe’s Imperator, so we ceased contact. It looked like she had resigned herself to her fate. You don’t gain that level of trust in the War Boys easily. We had no idea that she was just lying low, prepping to run for it someday with the War Rig.”

“That turned out lucky. She’s in control of the Citadel now, and Immortan Joe is dead,” Arthur pointed out.

“Or everyone is dead,” Dom repeated, if in a low mutter.

It was growing colder and darker by the time there was movement out in the maw of the Citadel, next to the lift, then two motorcycles wheeled on, and War Boys and others alike hastened onto the spokes, to run the pulley that let the great lift down. they straightened up from the shadow of the Opus, and Ariadne shaded her eyes as the motorcycles approached, occasionally twisting away as though from some hidden trap, finally stopping a respectful distance away.

To her surprise, both the riders were women: two older women, in fact, their faces wrinkled and seamed, heavily armed, one with a carbine, the other with a uzi and a pistol. The bikes were War Boy bikes, festooned with spikes, chrome-plated gas-hungry beasts, though gashes of red paint had been slashed over Immortan Joe’s brand. 

“G’day,” Dom waved at them, then whispered, “Ariadne, you’re it.”

“What? Me?” Ariadne whispered back, startled.

“They’re Vuvalini.” 

Ariadne blinked, then looked more closely at the older women. Fingers callused and scarred, both absolutely unafraid, relaxed, like loping predators rather than outnumbered parties to a possible trap. Awkwardly, she stepped forward, hands raised up. “Um. Hello?”

The women looked at her closely, then one of them got off her bike, striding over to study her. “You look familiar, child.”

“I should.” Ariadne dropped her hands. “I am also of the Many Mothers. But I have no proof, or any memory of my own mother, or my initiate mother. They ran out to Gas Town when the sour water came.” 

The older women exchanged glances. “Liza Kenihan,” said the one closest to Ariadne. “Tell me, child. What happened to them? Why are you here, alone?”

“Because they didn’t make it past the biker gangs in the ravine. They got me to Gas Town, and died.” 

The women frowned at Dom and the others. “Sounds convenient then, for you to have come by with the Preachers.”

Ariadne knew it. This was a bad idea. And besides, it wasn’t as though she _did_ care where she came from. The Preachers were her family: they had fed her, loved her, taught her how to fight, to drive a car, ride a bike. And most of all, they had taught her independence. “I came by with them because I’m good at killing War Boys,” she shot back irritably, “I got more’n my share just now, while you guys were sitting up in the Citadel all quietly. Far as I’m concerned, I saved all your asses, along with my friends here, and it’ll be nice if we could just get around to what everyone wants, rather than argue about shit that happened when I was a kid.” 

To her surprise, the old woman still seated on a bike laughed. “That’s Julia’s daughter, all right. Looks just like her mum did at that age. Breathed the same fire, too. You’re Ariadne, ain’tcha?”

Ariadne nodded dumbly, and bit back a burst of emotion. She had come to Gas Town violently, and had only remembered her name: not her mother’s face, not even the lands of her birth. Trauma had burned her early years from her mind, an empty cup shaped by doubt and the Preachers’ pity, and only now did she feel like it was filling.

“Right then, Ariadne, Julia’s daughter,” said the woman closer to her, with a gentle smile. “Why are you here then, flying the white flag, having killed the wolves at our door?” 

Ariadne actually had no real idea why they had waited here instead of going home, but she could guess. She wasn’t stupid, after all, and it wasn’t as though she hadn’t had an education of sorts - Saito had been quite insistent that all Preachers, whether male or female, had what he called a ‘practical knowledge of all things’. “We’ve got Scabrous. We control Gas Town, now,” Ariadne said confidently. “You’ve got the Citadel. Let’s trade like we used to. Water for guzzoline.”

“Um,” Dom cleared his throat, but Ariadne ignored him, getting into stride. “Also, we need extra water soon,” she added, “‘Cos we’re going to run salvage in the ravines.” 

“Where’d she hear that?” Ariadne could hear Dom mutter behind her, and was quickly shushed by Arthur. 

“Max,” said the old woman on the bike then. “Good to see you’re still in one piece.”

“Was a close thing here and there,” Max said wryly. “How’s Furiosa and everyone? You guys all right?”

“Had a dust up with Scabrous’ friends,” the woman shrugged. “Nothing we couldn’t handle. Though it _did_ take some handling. Everyone’s fine. Had to boot that other son of Immortan Joe’s off the side of the Citadel, and it’s all quietened down now.”

In the corner of her vision, Ariadne could see Max visibly relax. “Didn’t doubt it.” 

“Max and Julia’s daughter may come up to the Citadel,” said the Vuvalini close by. “We can talk ‘bout the price of water. The rest, thanks, but sorry, can’t do.”

Dom started to protest, only to get shushed again by Arthur, who said instead, “It was a pleasure. Er.” 

“We can take them up too,” Ariadne said quickly. “They’re like family to me.” 

“Later, maybe, but not right now,” the seated Vuvalini said delicately. “Everyone’s still a mite highly strung up top.”

“I’ll stay down here, if that’s all right with you,” Max said gruffly then, to Ariadne’s surprise. “Need to have a bit of a chat with a mate about a car.” 

Ariadne hid a grin at Arthur’s sigh, but the Vuvalini nodded. “Come then, child.”

Arthur wordlessly helped her strip the attached tent flaps off her dirt bike, and as Ariadne got on, he murmured, “Think you’ll be fine. But if there are any problems, just use the flare gun. I’ll come and get you.”

Ariadne shot him an impish smile, that she hoped hid both her unease and excitement. “Thanks. But if I’m in the shit, I’ll rescue myself.”

Arthur laughed, and Ariadne winked at him, then shook hands with Dom, and finally with Max. Then she revved up her bike, and took off after the remnants of her mother’s people.


	6. Chapter 6

VI.

The drive back to Gas Town was subdued. Arthur and Dom spoke in low voices, about trading strategies and routes and storage tanks, details that Max tuned out. He scrolled down the window of the Opus instead to take in the night’s chill. He was hungry, having only eaten travel rations all day, but hunger was a familiar companion to Max, and he ignored it, enjoying the ride, instead, and the relative novelty of no one trying to kill him.

When they pulled into Yusuf’s workshop, an elegant, Asiatic man was waiting for them, dressed in a worn gray suit and a white shirt turned cream with time. Saito, Max presumed: he could not quite make out the man’s age through his ascetic features, though his skin was already starting to mottle with age, his hair silver over his ears, streaking to black over the high dome of his forehead. His eyes were stern, but he wore a small smile of relief as Dom and Arthur emerged from the Opus. 

“Saito-san.” Dom greeted Saito respectfully. 

“Where is Ariadne?” Saito asked, and it was disorienting to hear his accent, exotic and lilting, like a step back to another, better time. 

“Negotiating. The Citadel was retaken by Furiosa and the Vuvalini.” 

“Ah.” Saito relaxed. “Then I hope for the best. And I have heard many stories from those who returned. It seems our new guest acquitted himself very well.” 

“That he did.” Arthur agreed.

“Strong praise from our Arthur.” Saito glanced over at Max, his stare calculating, steely, and Max felt for a moment the weight of Saito’s strength of will, of a _presence_ that swallowed the world around him to his own singular purpose, and it was only now that he fully understood what sort of person could command Arthur’s loyalty. “My thanks.”

Max nodded, wondering whether he could excuse himself and get a bite to eat, and stood blinking dumbly instead, as Saito added, “And for your service today, the Magnum Opus is yours.”

“But-“ Dom began, just as Arthur said, “Saito-san-“ 

“It is not honourable to make false promises,” Saito said mildly, the gentlest of reproofs, but Arthur ducked his head, abashed, and Dom sighed. “Besides, thanks in part to our friend here, we have new additions to our armoury that will serve us better in the ravines and beyond.” 

“Your call, sir,” Dom said, resigned, and followed Saito out of the workshop. Arthur lingered behind, even as Yusuf hurried over, to fuss around the Opus.

“She’s actually not even damaged. Other than a few bullet holes,” Yusuf said, with grudging admiration. “Just a top up and she’ll be good to go again.” 

“Congrats,” Arthur told Max briskly, clearly already recovered from his shock. “You’re welcome to eat and stay the night if you like. Free of charge. Or, if you want to leave, go ahead.”

“I’ll stay,” Max found himself saying, even though his instincts screamed at him to _go_ , take this unlikely, incredibly generous gift and chase the horizon. He had to clench his hands not to rub up against his cheek and neck: chasing the memory of Arthur’s touch, and Arthur blinked at him, then beckoned, and Max fell into step, heading out of the workshop.

“I don’t see the M’oath or the others,” Max said, as they stepped into the corridor.

“Since Scabrous is gone, we no doubt took over their garage.”

“Lucky that he decided go all in, then.” 

“Lucky,” Arthur echoed, and pulled a face. “I would’ve dug in, forced Furiosa to trade with me, maybe allied with whoever was left in Bullet Town.” 

“Like you said. Death cult.” 

“I hate being wrong,” Arthur said, and looked so adorably put out that Max grinned at him. “I was so sure he’d stay and reinforce his position. We were caught flatfooted.” 

“Seem to have done pretty well.”

“If you weren’t driving… if Ariadne hadn’t decided to tiger up… who knows.” 

“Don’t knock your own shooting. An’ now you boys run the town. Pats on the back all ‘round.”

“We still have to run salvage,” Arthur said absently. “That’s going to be a shit job and a half. Could use your help.”

“You’re shithouse on the sell,” Max said, with a smirk, and Arthur rolled his eyes.

“I mean it. Ravine’s going to be crawling with bikers and maybe War Boys, if they’re still hanging about. Could use your help. I’ll trade you a drum of guzzoline for it,” Arthur added, when Max frowned. “Opus is running low.”

“Always one thing after another,” Max said, though he felt a faint trace of anticipation, rather than irritation. If he had to be honest with himself, he’d rather enjoyed this day, driving the Opus, with Arthur as his gunner. They _had_ made a great team. “Sure. But I wanna see what you mean by a drum.” 

“Drifters and their suspicions,” Arthur made a show of sighing, though he nodded.

The cantina was moving into the next shift, but food came when Arthur beckoned, bowls of some sort of yeasty mushroom soup. It was pungent but warm, and Max ate greedily, gut clenching in anticipation of food, _warm_ food. The cantina was celebratory today: even homebrew moonshine was trotted out, lukewarm, but tasty enough, commonplace in townships. Water tended to go stale after a few days if it wasn’t stored right, but alcohol lasted. Besides, it usually tasted better.

“How’d you end up here?” Max asked, as the moonshine mellowed out his nerves. “You don’t talk like you’re from ‘round here.” 

“That as yet stubborn American drawl?” Arthur asked dryly. “I was born in Pine Gap. When the world started to die, most of the American families in the base flew back to the States. I wanted to stay. I liked it there. Was planning on enlisting.” 

“Why didn’t you stay there?”

“I did for a while,” Arthur said pensively. “The station’s well-protected. Even as the world went mental everywhere else, it just kept on chugging. But then raiders took out Alice Springs. After that, stuff started to unravel. I don’t know. They might still be doing fine.” 

“Wanted to leave before that happened?”

“Nah. I wasn’t even thinking about it. Up ’til one day, a half-dead Japanese guy drove into town, with an almost dead American guy and his shell-shocked French wife. We let them in, patched them up, and when they got better and decided to leave, I went with them.”

“I’m surprised that Saito moved on.”

“Eh.” Arthur shrugged. “Those days, it wasn’t all that bad yet. And Saito was determined to get somewhere specific in mind.”

“Gas Town?”

“No, no,” Arthur laughed. “This? This is just a pit stop.”

“Haven’t the Preachers been here for dog’s years?”

“Bit of a _long_ pit stop,” Arthur said, and smiled sharply. “What about you? Where’re you from?”

“Southeast. Grew up in a two-bit town in the middle of nowhere. Became a cop, even.”

“You?” Arthur drawled. “I’d never have figured.”

“Don’t knock it,” Max said, and found that he was starting to enjoy himself again, just shooting barbs back and forth with Arthur; it had been far too long. “I was a good cop.”

“Really?”

“No,” Max admitted, just to watch Arthur laugh again, and maybe the moonshine was getting to him, but watching it was warming him up inside, a slow tightening bloom in his chest, unfurling outwards like a tide. 

“Why’d you quit?”

“Raiders happened.” 

Thankfully, Arthur didn’t press. “And now we’re both in the asshole of the world, drinking homebrew moonshine.” 

“A drink, to the asshole of the world,” Max decided, and they knocked mugs, and drank. They were more than a little tipsy when Arthur walked the both of them out of the cantina, weaving on their feet, and Max found himself being tugged down another corridor, a different one that led upwards, not inwards, until he came to a set of rungs, set against rock. 

Thankfully, they somehow managed to navigate that without mishap, coming up into a narrow house, everything neatly in order, boxes tidy in stacks, shelves nailed to the walls, weapons held on racks. The bed was more of a cot, between a workbench with a bullet press and boxes of empty metal jackets yet to be finished, and bumping along, Max nearly wobbled into a low bench that held a small stack of yellowed books, dog-eared, but lovingly pressed into an upright ridge between two old biscuit tins, filled with strange knick knacks: bottlecaps, a bird skull, old pens, poker chips, dice, even a tiny little steel spinning top. Clothes hung from home-made wire hangars off a bar bolted to the wall, on the opposite end, and there was no door out, though there was a window, barred, set high and next to a stepladder.

Max didn’t get to investigate for long: Arthur set his lantern on a hook and dragged him over, and they sprawled onto the cot in a jumble of knees and elbows, Arthur’s teeth catching briefly on his lip before Max managed to slot it into a kiss, nervous and sloppy and far too out of practice, far too conscious that he didn’t quite remember the last time he had touched someone like this, with tenderness, with _want_. 

He had Arthur pinned, but somehow, Arthur was still having better luck with Max’s clothes, dragging off his jacket, then raking fingers up through his hair, as Max groaned and let Arthur press his tongue into his mouth, trying to get Arthur’s coat off. The air smelled like moonshine and sweat and lust, heavy with their stumbling gasps, and Max was just about to try and get a taste of Arthur’s bared neck when Arthur ran his splayed hands down the arch of Max’s back. 

“Fuck!” Max flinched, and Arthur snatched his hands away, wide-eyed. Hastily, Max added, “S’all right, mate. Just a souvenir from the Citadel.“

“I saw earlier that your back was hurting you, but… Shit. I forgot. Let me look at it. I’ve got a rub around here.”

“No need.” 

“Sit up. Move, man,” Arthur squirmed out from under Max, and Max sighed, blood cooling, obligingly pulling off his shirt and sitting on the edge of the cot as Arthur fumbled around in a box under the bed. 

“Jesus,” Arthur breathed, behind Max, and Max looked back, startled, then over at his back. The swelling was still bad, but nothing looked infected. “Damn those crazy bastards.”

“Nothing broken,” Max said indifferently, puzzled as Arthur shot him an unreadable stare, then rummaged a bit more, bringing out a bottle along with a pot and a clean-looking cloth. 

It was alcohol, of some sort, and Max hissed as Arthur wiped his back down, then rubbed something lightly onto the skin, the pain numbing away under his touch. Somehow, this felt far more intimate than kisses, than tangling together on the bed, and Max bowed his head, looking away, blinking hard and in dull astonishment as his eyes welled up. He didn’t remember the last time someone had done this, either, touched him with no thought but comfort. 

Max was sorry when it was done, unsure of what to say or do, and was irrationally, painfully grateful when Arthur merely put everything away and then tugged him over, curling up on the cot between Max and the wall, head tucked under Max’s chin. Curling an arm carefully over Arthur’s narrow waist, Max blinked hard, staring at the packed dirt wall, and allowed Arthur’s breathing to lull him to sleep.

b.

Ariadne had been slightly apprehensive when the lift platform had jolted beneath her, scrolling upwards. Beneath, the thousands of people who clearly lived at the foot of the Citadel had stopped clustering around its base, retreating underground, lifting up flaps that revealed tunnels beneath.

“Shallow graves,” said the older of the Vuvalini, all wispy gray hairs and a face like a wrinkled pouch. At Ariadne’s startled glance, the other Vuvalini laughed.

“Don’t mind her. They just sleep down there, child. It’s warmer for them.”

“They can’t all fit up here?” Ariadne asked. 

“There are thirty-three thousand of them,” said the older Vuvalini soberly. “The food reserves of the Citadel are stretched to ration levels, even with the War Boys mostly gone. And there’s no room to fit.”

“Thirty-three thousand!” Ariadne could not begin to imagine how many people that was, and squinting down at the vast crowds below, she felt dizzy. Gas Town and the Preachers’ underground conclave felt cramped at the best of times, but it was nowhere like this. She had never seen so many people all at once. 

“Immortan Joe was a real stinker. But this is a thing that he _was_ good at,” grunted the younger one, with earth-brown hair, the same sun-blasted wrinkled skin. “Feeding everyone. Think it’s the biggest township in the Big Nothing.”

“Used to be different, of course,” the older Vuvalini said wistfully. “Once cities were _huge_ -as. Millions of people, not just thousands. All living together, packed together like sardines inna tin.”

“Oh! We’ve been rude,” said the younger one, as they got up nearly to the top floor. “I’m Jessie. And this old doyenne is Sheila.”

“Who’re you calling old, you ancient biddy,” Sheila shot back, with a smirk, as the lift rumbled to a shaking halt. They got off their bikes, wheeling them through, and as War Boy children hastened up to take the handlebars, Ariadne flinched, her hands tightening on the bars.

“S’all right,” Jessie said gently. “But if it’ll make you feel better, you can take it with you.”

Slightly embarrassed at her jumpy reaction, Ariadne shook her head, and reluctantly let the War Boy take her Minotaur, the ragged tassels flicking against its dusty hand-painted flanks. She dragged her heels a little as she followed Sheila away from the War Boys, and had to fight not to keep peeking back over her shoulder at her bike.

“Your pride and joy?” Sheila asked, noticing, and Ariadne blushed a little.

“Yeah. I take care of her. Painted her too. She’s mine.” 

“I know what that’s like,” Jessie said wryly, even as Sheila chuckled. The corridors were high-ceilinged, natural gashes in the rock, as far as Ariadne could tell, with shafts of light coming in occasionally from the side, hollowed out to the sky. Like the winch, the people who passed them looked at Ariadne with open curiosity, War Boys and sand folk both, and she noted that all the War Boys who went past tended to be young, children or barely out of boyhood, the bone powder paste that usually covered their skin already sloughed off into patches. 

“Things come and go. Shouldn’t hold on.” 

“Says the woman who named her gun _and_ all her knives,” Jessie shot back, and Ariadne sensed that this was an old argument between them both, as comfortable as a favourite quilt. 

“Where’s everyone else?” Ariadne asked curiously. “Umm. Mister Saito once told me that there were lots of Vuvalini. Big tribe.”

Sheila sighed, looking away, and it was Jessie who said softly, “When the water soured, Liza the Orator had a falling-out with Katie the Mentor. And so the Swaddle Dog and Black Chook clans went one way, to try their luck crossing the salt. While Yarn Frog and the Red Kelpie thought to try the ravines, get to Gas Town.”

Ariadne swallowed. “S’pose we all saw how that turned out. You guys had the better idea.”

“Nah.” Jessie said, bitterly. “We shouldn’ta split. Should’a gone one way or the other. Together. Shonky deal all round.”

“Best not to think of what could’a been,” Sheila said quickly. “Wasn’t all a write-off. We’re rebuilding here,” she added, with a glance at Jessie. “Got some new initiates from the Citadel girls. Teaching them the ways.”

“You could stay too, if you like,” Jessie added earnestly. “After this.”

“Maybe.” Ariadne said warily. She _was_ curious, but she was conscious again that she _was_ here for a reason, that Saito was depending on her.

To her surprise, she was led up a narrow set of stairs, that wound like a corkscrew, up and up, until she was at the zenith of one of the Citadel peaks, surrounded by a blazingly lush garden, more green that she had ever seen in one place. Gawping, Ariadne turned slowly, admiring the neat racks of plants in their huge shelves, the piped irrigation, the occasional spinning water _spray_ , a luxurious use of water that seemed almost grotesque in its extravagance. But the vegetables being grown were huge, and lush, and Ariadne had to be tapped gently on the arm to be hurried along, blushing again as she ducked her head.

“I know,” Jessie said comfortingly. “I looked just like that when I came up here for the first time. Still do.”

Weaving around the racks, they eventually came to a pavilion on the edge, made of strips of canvas strung from a pole in the centre to form a tent with a prime view of the Big Nothing and Gas Town. Within it was a slender girl, with impossibly perfect alabaster skin and pale hair, like a wraith out of a desert, too beautiful to be real. She stared at Ariadne, unreadable, then crouched beside a pile of pillows and quilts, washing a strip of cloth in a basin of water. Lying on that, sweating, skin sallow with fever, was Imperator Furiosa, her prosthetic arm set aside with a shotgun, but other than that she was fully dressed in leather rigged armour, her gaze sharp and openly curious. 

“This is Ariadne,” Jessie told Furiosa. “Once of the Many Mothers. Julia Allen’s daughter, of the Red Kelpie Clan.” 

“Ah.” Furiosa seemed to relax visibly, and the blonde girl carefully layered the wet cloth on her forehead. “You’re a Preacher.” 

“That’s right. I’m here on behalf of Mister Saito, to trade water for guzzoline.” Ariadne didn’t like being a bit of a wowser, but she _was_ here on business.

Furiosa nodded wearily. “We can spare water. The same terms? Two cans of water to one of guzzoline?” 

“Same terms, sure.” Ariadne wished that Saito - or even Dom - had briefed her more on this, and felt ignorant. But then again, no one had actually expected Scabrous to make the mad run that he did. “Um,” she added, in a rush, “Sorry to say this. But you don’t look too well.”

“Because I’m not,” Furiosa said dryly. “But I’ll get over it.”

“Just um. Just, I mean. Saito and Dom and Arthur, they came here from some place that used to be military,” Ariadne said, in a rush, before she could regret it. “They got stuff… er… medicines from before the Collapse. Maybe something in there could help?”

“It’s been decades since the Fall,” Jessie said doubtfully. “Don’t know if any of that’s still any good. Could make things worse.” 

“Was just a thought,” Ariadne said defensively.

“I’ll be fine.” Furiosa said dismissively. “Anything else?”

“We kinda need to trade real soon,” Ariadne said apologetically. “Sorry to push. But Mister Saito wants to run a salvage op to get back the War Rig. If it’s still salvageable.” 

“And what does he want it for?”

“No idea,” Ariadne admitted honestly. “Maybe it’s just the best way to trade water between you guys and us.”

“True.” Furiosa nodded again, and closed her eyes, breathing in and out carefully, as though it hurt, and Ariadne noted that there were fresh scuffs on the ground, near the pavilion, as if a gunfight had recently taken place, even so close to so much impossible greenery. “Saito can do what he likes. If he wants water for the salvage op, ask him to come and get it from us whenever he’s ready.”

“Thanks,” Ariadne said, and waited uncomfortably, but Furiosa didn’t respond, breathing shallowly, and eventually, Sheila nudged at her, tugging Ariadne away and back to the staircase, while Jessie fussed at Furiosa’s pillows and spoke quietly to the silent blonde girl. 

“I think I might come with you to Gas Town,” Sheila said, as they descended. “That is, if you don’t mind.” 

“Sure.” Ariadne blinked. “I’ll show you around. It’s kinda an ugly bitsy little town though, compared to here.” 

“I mean,” Sheila said mildly, “I’ll like to have a look at them meds.”

“Oh! Oh right. Sure.” Ariadne said quickly, embarrassed. Of _course_ the Vuvalini wouldn’t be interested in just Gas Town itself. “Um. Now?” The War Boys had only just taken away their bikes, after all.

“Now.” Sheila shot an uneasy stare up the staircase. “She’s been running hot for days, and I don’t like it.”


	7. Chapter 7

VII.

Max woke with a grunt, flailing, tearing out of a dream full of whispering ghosts, and landed with a thump and a yelp on the floor, after a fraction of a second of vertigo as he fell. Blinking, he scrambled blindly up, bumping his ribs against the edge of the bed, disoriented, then he realized belatedly where he was, and pulled himself up sheepishly to sit on the cot, rubbing a palm over his face.

“Good morning.”

Max looked up sharply. Arthur was sitting perched on the stepladder before the window, back to the wall, using the light from the window and the early morning to read a tattered old book. For a moment, the look of it all was so alien that Max could only stare, and then rub his eyes in disbelief. Books, in this age of the world, were at best fuel, at worst an aide to sanitation.

Arthur misread the stare: he snapped the book closed. “Yes,” he drawled. “I _can_ read.”

“Wasn’t thinking that,” Max muttered, as Arthur slipped gracefully off the ladder. “Been a while since I seen someone reading.”

“Ah.” Arthur replaced the book on the stack in the low bench, and in the light of the morning Max could finally make out their titles. It was a strange collection, with no apparent theme: George Orwell’s _1984_ , Sun Tzu’s _Art of War_ … everything from Raymond Chandler to a pocket encyclopaedia, Kurt Vonneghut to first aid, and even a little orange cookbook. The book Arthur had been reading was called _Childhood’s End_ , and it was particularly ragged.

“Hungry?” Arthur prompted, and Max shook himself. 

“You, ah, you been awake long?” 

“I don’t need much sleep.” Arthur started to step by, then hesitated, and added, “How’s your back?”

“Better.” It still hurt, but it hurt less. “You guys make meds too?”

“Nah. It was from a cache we brought down from Pine Gap.”

“That long ago?” Max blinked. “It don’t go bad?”

“Nope. There was a study done once. Most meds are good for ten, fifteen, more years past their expiry date. The reason the dates are on the tin is ‘cos the drug companies won’t make money on a product you can buy and sit on for a decade…” Arthur trailed off, then smiled wryly. “Saying that makes it all seem so ridiculous.”

“What does?”

“The old world.” 

Max snorted, and got to his feet, rolling his shoulders, then picking up his shirt - sometime when he had been sleeping, Arthur had folded his clothes neatly on the bench. “You miss the old world?”

“Not particularly. I like this one. It’s simpler.” 

“Tell that to Immortan Joe’s wives.” 

“Sadly,” Arthur said evenly, “The widespread prevalence of violence against women is hardly a new world concept.”

Max braced himself, but there was no sudden haunting, no dizzying flash of ugly memories. “True,” he said finally instead, blinking dumbly, which earned him an odd glance from Arthur before Arthur nodded and headed towards the trapdoor. Now that the morning had come, last night’s fumbled kisses seemed like a daydream, blurred even in his own memory: Max could not quite imagine having taken pretty, lethal Arthur in his arms, and but for having actually woken up in Arthur’s house, would probably have been convinced that he had imagined it.

“Know what I miss about the old world?” Max asked, as they eventually neared the cantina, breaking the companionable silence between them since stopping by the ‘bathroom’ to use it in turn. 

“What?”

“Bacon,” Max admitted, as the too-earthy scent of yeast and mushrooms hit them both, this close. 

“Oh, now you’ve done it,” Arthur said, with a sharp smile. “I’m going to be thinking of that all day now.” 

“How’d you even remember what that is? You were probably a little mite when the world went bust.” 

“Military base. _American_ military base. Lots of stores.” Arthur reminded him patiently, as they wound out into the crowded cantina - then he stopped, scanning the room. After a moment, Max noticed her as well: Ariadne and Sheila, sitting at a table in the corner of the cantina, with none other than Saito. Ariadne waved, and Saito half-turned, then beckoned, and so they ended up squeezing up at the table, Arthur next to Saito, Max next to the Vuvalini. 

“You’re back quick,” Arthur told Ariadne mildly, as breakfast was served to the latecomers. 

“Couldn’t stay away,” Ariadne was already halfway through her bowl. “Nah. Sheila here had a question, s’all.” 

Arthur glanced at Sheila, who merely smiled at him, bowl finished, hands clasped on the table. “They are looking for a favour,” Saito supplied.

“I hear you have American medical supplies,” Sheila said patiently. “Like to have a look. I’ll pay.” 

“Take what you need,” Saito said indifferently, to Max’s surprise. “Thanks to Furiosa I will soon have what _I_ need.”

“Assuming that War Rig’s okay,” Arthur muttered. 

“Even if it is not,” Saito said, with a reproving glance at Arthur, “Yusuf is confident that he will be able to ‘rig’ something up using the trucks we captured from Scabrous. So it will be. Ariadne, show our guest to the stores, please.”

“Thanks,” Sheila said, then she smiled suddenly, a little wistfully. “I been to Tokyo once.”

“Ah.” Saito’s expression tightened for a moment, then he nodded. “As a tourist?” 

“Yeah. I was backpacking. Went from the south to the north, then hopped back from Hokkaido to Tokyo, stayed coupl’a days, went home. It was amazing.”

“Yes,” Saito said heavily. “Tokyo saturates the senses. Even now, I think, at the new dawn.” 

“Righto.” Sheila got up from the bench, then she hesitated, frowning to herself. “Me head’s not quite tight on nowadays. But. _Ari_ … mm… _arigato_ , I think. _Arigato. Gozaymus?_ ” 

Max could see from Arthur’s suddenly blank expression that at least part of Sheila’s attempted Japanese was incorrect, but Saito smiled, a suddenly warm, broad smile that seemed out of place on the ascetic, dignified leader of the Preachers, and he got up as well, to shake Sheila by the hand. “It has been a pleasure to meet you, Sheila-san. _Ki wo tsukete_.”

Arthur pushed his finished bowl aside when Saito sat down, lowering his voice. “Shouldn’t you have put a limit on that offer, sir?”

Saito glanced at Arthur. “Ariadne will make sure that our guest does not take more than she needs. And besides,” Saito added thoughtfully. “Who else can the drugs be for, but Furiosa? It is always a good play to ensure that the right people stay in power.”

“She’s doing poorly?” Max asked, concerned. 

“I do believe her injuries were perhaps worse than what I had been led to believe,” Saito said mildly. “But with medication, perhaps she will recover soon enough.” 

“Assuming those meds don’t kill her.” Arthur muttered.

“I’m confident that they won’t. And Sheila can read. We’ve been careful with the labels. Either way,” Saito added, as Arthur started to protest again, “Even if Furiosa does not survive, no doubt she will name one of her people as her successor. And her people will remember our gesture as one of generosity. So.” 

“All right, boss.” Arthur subsided. “Your call.”

“Will you be leaving us soon?” Saito turned to Max. “Be careful in the south, if that is where you are headed. There are bandit gangs, particularly near the old townships.” 

“He’s coming with us on the salvage run. Promised him a drum of guzzoline,” Arthur said, watching as Max slowly finished his bowl. Warm food was still a luxury, even this bland fare, and Max found himself wanting to savour it. 

“Ah. You will be well worth that price,” Saito said approvingly. “Yusuf wants to patch up the M’oath for the run. So it will be perhaps in a handful of days. In the meantime, do what you like. Or visit your friends in the Citadel, perhaps. It’ll do you well to see new places as well, Arthur, if they will allow you to.” 

“Not that interested,” Arthur admitted. 

“When the crown sits unsteady on the head,” Saito said, just as mildly, as he rose to his feet, “Sometimes the feet become restless.”

Max watched Saito go, confused, then glanced back at Arthur, who was frowning at his hands. “What was that about?”

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s go find Ariadne.” 

“I think it matters.”

“Simple math, all right?” Arthur lowered his voice further. “There’s thirty-three thousand people in the Citadel. If Furiosa’s ill enough that one of the Vuvalini have come here looking for meds, even expired meds… maybe someone in that mass of all that might think he or she deserves to be King.”

Shit. 

Years ago, before the Collapse, Max would’ve laughed, and told Arthur that he was being paranoid, that Furiosa, after all, had been the one to liberate all of the Citadel folks from Immortan Joe. But the new world had taught Max all that he ever wanted to learn about basic human nature. 

“Lemme talk to Sheila.”

4.0.

They drove to the Citadel in the Opus, with Sheila and Ariadne ahead on their bikes. Max had gone silent again, perhaps with his daily quota of words exhausted, reverting back to his secondary language of grunts and shrugs and twitchy glances. Or perhaps he was one of those people who became alive only at the prospect of mayhem. Arthur had known people like that.

He was somewhat relieved that an accidental touch to Max’s back had brought a premature end to an ill-advised moonshine-fuelled tumble. Max was handsome, certainly, and just about exactly Arthur’s type, but he was also clearly crazy. Besides, this was a distraction that Arthur didn’t need, not at this stage, and he was beginning to regret having invited Max along on the salvage run.

Following Saito had taught Arthur the futility of regrets, however, and so Arthur leaned back in his seat and watched the sand go by, window scrolled down. He had left the carbine back in Gas Town, and had packed only a spare handgun, magazine refills and a book, and was idly wondering whether he should also have packed rations, when Max said suddenly, “You looked around Gas Town before?”

“Yeah.” Arthur glanced at Max, but Max’s eyes were fixed on the road. “Been south. Saito’s right about the bandits, by the way. Been east. Been west. Been into the ravines, as well. Not far.”

“Met the bikers?”

“Exchanged fire. Retreated.” 

“What were you doing there?” 

“Looking around,” Arthur said casually.

“Seems a long way to go - through sandstorms - just for a look around.” 

“Mister Saito likes to keep an eye on the world.”

“Sounds like you like to get yourself into trouble,” Max shot back, and Arthur laughed.

“I’m not the one who’s crossing the Big Nothing alone.” 

“I…” Max trailed off, frowning, and Arthur felt guilty all of a sudden. No man ever did voluntarily choose to be alone, after all, and something traumatic _had_ obviously happened to Max in the past. Something was driving Max across the sands, away from the Citadel, even, where he could have lived the rest of his life in what relative comfort a post Collapse world allowed, and there was nothing worse to any person than their own private demons. 

“Hey,” Arthur said softly. “Not judging.” 

“I started it,” Max said, with a faint shrug. “Technically. Guess you probably thought I was a fruit loop. Leaving the Citadel.” 

“Thought you had your reasons.”

“Thought maybe Furiosa spit the dummy at me?” Max’s mouth lifted up at a corner.

“If she did, you’d be lighting out of there with gunshot wounds, at the least,” Arthur shot back, and it was Max’s turn to laugh, in a low, rough chuckle that made Arthur’s toes curl in his boots. Max was a feral sort rugged handsome, a little _too_ handsome for the new world, in Arthur’s opinion: there was something too plush about his mouth, too soft at his eyes. 

Max was silent again, even through to the Citadel, as the Opus trundled onto the lift along with the bikes and was winched up in a bone-jarring jerk. Arthur got out of the car, to look around with unabashed interest, at the crowds milling below, at the green-topped rock monoliths. Precarious-looking bridges had been strung like cats’ cradles across from monolith to monolith, and Arthur tried to calculate in his mind exactly how _much_ food had to be farmed each day, to support the entirety of the Citadel, and gave up. He wasn’t sure if the water would last forever, either. 

“Pretty cool, yeah?” Ariadne asked, from her dirt bike. 

“Yeah.” It was amazing, actually, what Immortan Joe had built.

“‘Course,” Ariadne said loyally, “Mister Saito’s operation in Gas Town’s nothing to sneer about either. And if he’d had all this to work with, I bet he’d have done _way_ better.”

“Maybe,” Arthur allowed. Immortan Joe had tried to build to last. Saito, on the other hand, was only using Gas Town as a means to an end. However, before he could explain this to Ariadne, another bone-jarring shudder told Arthur that they had reached the top of the lift, and he turned, stepping across into the Citadel behind Ariadne. 

They ended up parking their own vehicles and lounging around the large ‘first’, high-ceilinged floor space that had once held Immortan Joe’s large vehicle fleet and which was now almost entirely empty, save for a handful of vehicles still unfinished in the workshops. All the workshops bar one were unused, but mechanics - War Boys and sand folk alike - were working busily in the last, toiling over an old Corvette. 

Sheila had gone up top first, with the medicines, leaving Ariadne with them, and with nowhere to go and wary of their welcome, Arthur, Max and Ariadne ended up just lounging against the Opus in the huge space, watching the mechs work. 

“So where did you come from?” Ariadne asked Max, and Arthur tuned them out as Max offered a few terse, gruff answers. There had been evidence of recent skirmishes in this level of the Citadel - gunshot gouges in the walls, scuffmarks, even black stains that hadn’t quite scrubbed out on the dirt floor. Civil unrest _had_ broken out, quite seriously, on or before Scabrous’ own battle with the Preachers out on the sand. 

Eventually Sheila returned, to tell Max to head on up, and when Max shot Arthur an unreadable glance, Arthur shrugged. Max nodded then, as though Arthur had answered some unspoken question, and obligingly followed a War Boy out of the large room. 

“Hungry?” Sheila asked Arthur, when Max was gone.

“Not really.”

“Balls. Young men are always hungry,” Sheila said cheerfully, and insisted on all of them eating: some sort of baked potato dish threaded through with fresh lettuce. Ariadne poked at the salad with open astonishment, and even Arthur tried to savour it, chewing slowly, rolling the fresh crunchy taste in his mouth, an unimaginable luxury in the new world.

“I had that look on me face too,” Sheila said gently, as they sat together a floor up from the garage floor, beside some hollowed out windows looking out towards gas town. This had been some sort of training room of sorts, judging from the weights and the mats on the ground, but like the garage below, it was empty. 

“It’s been…” Arthur trailed off. “Too long,” he said finally. “Decades.”

“What’d you miss about the old world?” Ariadne asked, one of her favourite questions to those who had lived pre-Collapse.

“I was pretty young,” Arthur admitted, and said facetiously, “Probably my dog. I miss dogs. Haven’t seen one in decades, either. Any animal out hereabouts will just get eaten. What about you?” he asked Sheila.

“Ah,” Sheila’s mouth wrinkled into a crooked smile. “Too many to count. I was young enough to have squandered my time, old enough to remember too much. But I think the thing I miss most…” the old lady trailed off.

“What?” Ariadne prompted.

“Pads. Sanitary napkins,” Sheila elaborated, when Ariadne looked blank, and laughed. “Sure, I don’t need them no more, but back _when_ … and the young man’s blushing! I’ll have you know, young man, that women’s troubles are nowt to be secret about.”

“The hell is a pad?” Ariadne asked, mystified, and Arthur started choking, even as Sheila started to laugh, and thankfully, at that point, a slender girl with flame-red hair walked up to them, to sit down beside Sheila, her gaze frankly curious as she looked Arthur and Ariadne over. The girl was beautiful, pale-skinned and freckled, wrapped in white cloth.

“Hello,” said the newcomer, and from the look of her, Arthur guessed that she had probably been one of Immortan Joe’s wives: her skin was pale, as though untouched by the harsh sun, and there was something fiercely sensual about her beauty, something otherworldly and lush.

“This is Capable,” Sheila introduced her. “Capable, Ariadne… and Arthur.” 

“Gas Town, right?” Capable asked. 

“Yeah.” Ariadne said quickly, almost defensively.

“I was from Gas Town.” Capable said softly. “Born and raised. Eaten at the Preachers’, too, more’n once. Me and me mum.”

“Oh.” Ariadne blinked quickly. “You’re the one who was snatched up from Gas Town. I… I only heard about it.” 

“Yeah. I got unlucky. Me mum got the worse end of the deal,” Capable added, then forced a smile. “How’s the old place?”

“Mister Saito’s taken over,” Arthur said cautiously. “If you liked, you could visit anytime. The War Boys have been cleared out.”

“I’ll like that. Sometime.” Capable said, obviously without actually meaning it, tilting her head. “Why are you guys here?”

“Diplomatic effort,” Arthur offered, conscious of the War Boys lingering around at the edge of his vision, wondering how widespread the knowledge of Furiosa’s illness was, in the Citadel.

“Or maybe Saito decided that he wants to be King of more than Gas Town?” Capable shot back evenly, her stare steady and unafraid, and Arthur held it for a long moment before he smiled sharply back. 

“You don’t understand Mister Saito at all.” 

“I was taken from Gas Town pretty young,” Capable pushed on. “But I remember you. I used to ask my mum why you liked to take a handful of people and just go out into the Big Nothing. She said, ‘some people in this world just like to kill’.” 

“That’s enough,” Ariadne said sharply. “We _really_ are here to make nice, all right? Good fucking _god_. Why’d we hand over all those meds otherwise? You don’t get to talk shit about Arthur. You don’t even _know_ us.” 

“Didn’t say otherwise,” Capable said, her voice still neutral. “It’s been a rough few days. Scabrous, Furiosa being poorly, trying to run things… everyone’s got to be careful.”

“No doubt,” Arthur said cautiously, wondering where this was going, as Capable nodded at him and rose to her feet.

Maybe he should’ve stayed in Gas Town.


	8. Chapter 8

VIII.

"You look like hell," Furiosa told Max, when he sat down beside her, at the top of the Citadel under a pavilion. Toast was on wet rag duty, it seemed, offering Max a little wave before changing the soaked cloth on Furiosa's forehead, and the tent smelled of acrid sweat, of sickness. Furiosa lay propped up on rags and cushions, her eyes half-lidded in her fevered, flushed face, as she looked out over the mass of farmed greenery around them, and for one morbid moment Max wondered if she had simply come up top to die.

" _You_ look like hell," Max shot back, and Furiosa laughed, a coughing, hacking laugh. "Took your meds?" 

"Yeah. What the hell, right?" Furiosa closed her eyes, a faint curl of a smile in her mouth. "Y'know. I was one of the first kids born to the Many Mothers. Back then, there was... my mother's sister, they called her America Jane. Funny name, yeah?" 

It was the fever rambling, Max knew, and he exchanged glances at Toast, who offered him a blank stare in return. Instead of her white rags, Toast was wearing War Boys gear: tunic, leather breeches, belts, even a knife sheathed at a hip and long boots: she looked, but for her longer, dark hair, like a younger version of Furiosa. It was a good look. 

"Yeah, funny name," Max offered neutrally. 

"It's 'cos she was always going on about how the Americans were coming," Furiosa said, with another coughing laugh. "About how things were just temporary, that the 'mericans would swoop in, fix it all. She couldn't imagine how _all_ the world could've gone to shit." 

"There's an American down below, if you wanna talk to him," Max noted. "Technically one, anyway. Think he was whelped here. But he sure talks like a yank." 

"I know. Sheila told me." Furiosa cracked her eyes open a fraction, and even though the fever was burning her up, the steel was still there, the iron spine of her, unbent. "What'd you think?" 

"I think he's a crazy asshole but he'll do right by his boss' word." 

"And what does Saito want?" 

"Out of you guys? Water." 

"Out of the War Rig," Furiosa said, with a touch of impatience. "What else is there to salvage out there?" 

"How should I know?" Max shrugged. "People don't usually pour their 'earts out to me. Most of you think I'm starkers." 

"Can't blame us," Furiosa pointed out, though she smiled, very faintly, at that. "Funny thing. Thought you were gonna light out back into the Big Nothing. Alone." 

"Needed a car," Max admitted. "Got one off Saito. Now I need guzzoline. Getting that off Saito too." 

"Hm." Furiosa closed her eyes, and Toast sat cross-legged on the pillows, changing the cloth on her forehead again. "Never asked you where you were going." 

"Couldn't have given you an answer," Max said honestly. 

"Why'd you leave?" Toast cut in suddenly, her eyes narrowed. "You just up and _went_. Didn't even say goodbye. Capable was a bit cheesed off about it." 

"Too many people. Not good with crowds," Max said, which had a touch of truth to it, and Toast grimaced, looking down at her hands. 

"Yeah, well. What with that bloodbath a day back, there's a little fewer of them than there were before." 

"Hope you went through the rest with a comb," Max observed. "'Cos I don't think you've seen the last of crazy War Boys, just saying." 

"I've got plans." Furiosa assured him. 

"Always got a plan, huh?" 

"'Course." Furiosa said quietly. "How else d'you think I'm still alive right now? I always have a plan." 

"Does that include getting the hell off your ass anytime soon?" Max drawled, and the faint smile ticked up Furiosa's mouth. "Think you should be resting," Max added, more seriously. "You running the show?" 

"Jessie is. Well. Jessie, Capable and Toast, anyway. Some of the rest try to help out. There's a lot to do." 

"Food and water for everyone?" 

"We're planning a more efficient way of getting water to everyone without splashing it on the dirt like that," Toast piped up. "Previously it was just that asshole showing off. As to food, everyone's doing fine with the rations they had before." 

"Mister Saito's feeding part of Gas Town singlehandedly somehow. Might want to learn how." Max suggested. 

"I know how he's doing it. Yeast vats, mushroom farms, even rats. Whatever can be mass produced from nothing much. What I never did figure out was _why_ he was doing it." Furiosa said. 

"Power?" 

"He could've taken over Gas Town whenever he liked," Furiosa disagreed. "Immortan Joe used to worry over it now and then." 

"Taken over, without Immortan Joe and the Bullet Town boys coming by to put on the smackdown?" Toast asked dryly. 

"Gas Town's fortified." 

"Can't fortify a place with no water." Toast shot back, and Max smiled thinly. Toast had always struck him as the toughest and smartest of the 'wives', and it was small wonder that she was helping to shoulder the burden of running the Citadel, in Max's opinion. "Think he was smart to lay low and wait until we got rid of Immortan Joe first. And maybe now he's smart enough to trick us into inviting one of his pet assassins into our own house." 

"Arthur isn't here for that." Max said firmly. 

"You so sure about that, are you?" 

"Honestly," Max said, frowning at the greenery around them, "I don't even think that Saito's going to stay long in Gas Town himself." For Max had recognised a touch of restlessness in Saito, especially during their last meeting, a twitchy energy that had perhaps lain long dormant, crushed under his ironclad air of dignity. 

"Hm," Furiosa hummed to herself, and said nothing more, and they sat up top together, until the air started to grow chilly. 

Capable appeared, shooting Max a brief stare before helping Toast support Furiosa back down a floor, and Max trailed behind them, awkward, already restless himself. A young War Boy led him to guest rooms: what had probably once been a War Boy cell of sorts, with a cot, an chair, a window and nothing else, and Max stared out over the desert night, the endless sands. He tried to imagine himself out there, alone, driving the Opus, and wasn't sure where to go. South, to take his chances with the bandits? East, but skirting the ravines and the storms? The world seemed impossibly large now, where it hadn't even really registered before, and he stared at the horizon line for a moment longer before turning around. 

Arthur was leaning against his door, absolutely silent, and he smirked as Max flinched. "Food delivery," he said, and offered Max a bowl of potatoes and green leaves, and a mug of water. "I know, right?" Arthur added, when Max stared numbly at the leaves. "It's like being five years old all over again." 

"You uh... you eaten?" Max put the water carefully down on the chair, and sat down on the cot with the bowl. 

"Yeah." Arthur leaned against the door again, arms folded. "Though I gather not everyone here likes me." 

"They're not sure about your boss." Max ate slowly, trying to memorise the taste of fresh leaves, of the crunch and juice in his mouth, and to his embarrassment, felt his eyes sting for a moment, as his tongue pressed against the spine of one of the leaves. He looked away. 

Arthur seemed to pretend not to have noticed. "Yeah, I got that too." 

"If you told them what he was up to-" 

"I don't know what he's up to. I can only guess. And that's not good enough a reassurance." 

"What's your guess, then?" Max tried one of the potatoes, steaming hot, baked: it burned his fingers and mouth, but it was good, buttery and waxy. 

"Think he's planning on moving on. Heading south, through the bandits. Head down to Sydney or Melbourne." 

"What for?" Max blinked. "It's the same there as it is everywhere. Maybe worse. The cities got nuked." 

"He probably owned lots of stuff here and there before the Collapse." Arthur said indifferently. "Maybe he wants to do a bit of a tour while he still can. That's my guess anyway. We've been stockpiling supplies for a while. With the War Rig, we'll be able to get as far as them places with a small convoy." 

"It's mental," Max argued, still astonished by the revelation. He had guessed this, of course, had said so to Furiosa, but hearing it said so blandly, by Arthur, came like a shock after all, like reality being underlined. A journey halfway across Australia- "What about the bandits?" 

"Been gradually thinning them out," Arthur smiled sharply. "Mapping their territories. I wasn't just 'looking for trouble' all this time." 

"And you're planning on going with him?" Max frowned. 

"Why not?" Arthur shrugged. "So there you go. That's my guess. And Furiosa's welcome to it too, if she asks you again." 

_Why not?_ The simplicity of the answer felt like a cop out. But then again, Max himself had no reason why he wandered the wastes; why he had left the Citadel even when invited to stay. Restlessness burned in his bones along with his demons, and even now, even here, he wished he was gone. Silently, he finished his food, drank the water, then Arthur picked up the bowl and mug with an ironic smile and a flourish, inclined his head, and left, closing the door behind him. 

Max leaned his shoulders back against the wall, exhaling loudly. It was going to be a bad night.

c.

The days passed pretty quickly. There wasn't much to do in the Citadel. Sheila had started up classes for the female sand folk, and Ariadne sat in, out of curiosity. The lessons were esoteric, and broad, running from basic A B Cs to first aid to self-defense, and it was all basic stuff that she'd long learned from the Preachers.

"Why only the womenfolk?" Ariadne asked Sheila once, when she was helping Sheila clear up chalk and slate after a class, and Sheila had hesitated, stared at her for a long moment, then sighed. 

"'Cos this place been scarred, that's why," Sheila said quietly. "Women here, the pretty ones get raped, the not so pretty ones... if they're healthy, and fertile, they become cows. If they ain't fertile or pretty, then they live at the feet of the Citadel with everyone else, and the way I heard it, law and order don't exist down below. Got to fix all that from the ground up. They don't know nothin' else." 

"What's the point of learning how to read?" Ariadne asked then, puzzled. "I mean. I can read. Saito made me learn. But there's no longer any point to it." 

"Oh, my girl," Sheila smiled wearily, the same wry, sad smile that Saito had given her, when Ariadne had posed the same question to her boss. "I can't even begin to explain that." 

"Arthur's got books," Ariadne volunteered then, then felt a bit bad for conceding the information. "They're his treasure." 

"As they should be. Reading quickens the mind, young lady. Now why don't you help take over a class or two, while you're still here?" 

"Arthur could take over a class or two," Ariadne muttered, but that got ignored, and when she complained to Arthur afterwards, over dinner, holed up in the rec room next to the windows, he shook his head slowly. 

"It's a scar that they got to close themselves," was all he said, and changed the subject. "You gonna come with to the salvage?" 

"Dunno," Ariadne admitted. It was kinda boring in the Citadel, sometimes. But it wasn't too bad. Here, people were actually trying to improve. To move somewhere, together. Back in Gas Town, there'd always been some kinda stasis, between the People Eater, Scabrous, and Saito. 

"Well, you think about it," Arthur said kindly. "No pressure." Max grunted, as if in agreement, but didn't look up from his bowl, sitting cross-legged next to Arthur. Save when up top talking to Furiosa, Max didn't usually leave Arthur's side, and it was... kind of weird, but kind of cute, Ariadne decided. She wasn't even sure if Max was consciously doing it. 

"You're going too, yeah?" she prompted. "Max?" 

"Huh? Yeah." 

"After that? Then where?" 

"Dunno." Max didn't look up. "Elsewhere." 

"You could stay with us," Ariadne suggested. "I mean. If you like adventure, Arthur goes on raids now and then. Pretty fun. What's so great about walking the Big Nothing? There's nothing to run from anymore. Or to." 

"Always something," Max muttered, and clammed up, and Arthur arched an eyebrow pointedly at Ariadne. She stuck out her lower lip, but covered her irritation by taking a sip of water from her cup, and dropped the subject. 

Couple of days after that, the refitted M'oath showed up at the foot of the Citadel, along with an escort of bikers and a couple of jazzed up Fords and Corvettes: Saito's convoy, come at last. Ariadne felt herself lightheaded with excitement after all, as she rode the lift down with Jessie and drums of water, perched on her Minotaur. She'd missed everyone: that had been enough to make her mind up for her, when Jessie had spied the convoy on its way from Gas Town. Arthur and Max would go last, both waiting in their Opus, once the convoy was supplied. 

On the bottom, she sped up over to the M'oath, and grinned as Dom hopped down, shaking her hand, then heading over to speak to Jessie. Ariadne wheeled up closer, to where Yusuf was sitting in the passenger side, looking glum. 

"What gives?" Ariadne asked cheerfully. "Long face!" 

"What gives?" Yusuf sighed. "I've been hauled out of my nice workshop into the wilderness, that's what gives." 

"Aww, don't think of it that way. It's gonna be _awesome_." 

"Sandstorms, crazy cannibal biker people, insane War Boys and their allies. Sure. Awesome," Yusuf said unenthusiastically, and had a sook even as Ariadne turned her bike around, watching as Preachers hauled off drums of guzzoline and eyed the crowd around them warily. They had a right to be careful, Ariadne decided, for all that Furiosa and the others did seem to care more about the sand folk than Immortan Joe. There was a feral look to them all, a hungry, drawn cast to their sun-blasted faces, as the water was loaded off the lift, the drums rolled over to be hauled up onto the back of the M'oath, or onto the backs of the other pickups. 

When the lift went up to get more water, Dom went with it, and as though sensing that the Preachers had just temporarily lost their leader, the sand folk pressed closer, murmurs and grumbles rippling through the crowd, like a storm breaking on the horizon. Ariadne narrowed her eyes, and fought to keep her hand away from her pistols, even as she heard the other Preachers rev up their engines, in pointed warning. 

"Oh god," Yusuf muttered. 

"Take the wheel and keep ready," Ariadne shot back, without taking her eyes off the crowd, revving her bike as well, as a gap-toothed man stumbled almost into arm's reach. Behind them, the crowd had closed them in, cutting them off, and for the first time in her life, in a rush of animal fear, Ariadne regretted having chosen to be a biker. If the crowd crushed in, she would be torn apart, she knew that: she would never be able to kill enough of them to save herself. 

"Water," was the chant that whispered through the ranks of people, sun-baked, rank and wild-eyed, ragged and bony. "Water, water-" 

"Look!" someone shouted at the back, then even as Ariadne flinched, hand tightening on the stock of her pistol, the crowd swelled around them, then stumbled away, scrambling, stampeding towards the side of the main Citadel pillar. High above, poised before some sort of lever control, was a red-haired girl - Capable, probably - and she pushed the levers, causing a torrent of water to gush out from the gigantic mouth of a metal skull, gashing past its stylised teeth to the rocks below. 

"Fuck," Yusuf whispered, and Ariadne had to agree, sucking in a thin breath, cold sweat wetting her back. Suddenly, staying in the Citadel didn't seem like a remotely attractive prospect, and she was impatient by the time the lift finally came down, with Arthur and Max and the Opus and the last bit of water, Dom still talking to Jessie as though nothing had happened. He waved good-bye to her as the Preachers loaded on the last of the guzzoline, the Opus trundling off to make room, then as the lift started back up, Dom pulled himself into the M'oath. 

"All right, guys, time to shove off," Dom said loudly. 

"And none too fucking soon," Yusuf retorted. "What the fuck, boss. Why'd we have to come all the way up here?" 

"Saves moving drums?" Dom asked, sounding surprised that Yusuf had even asked, and Ariadne bit down on the retort in her throat as the M'oath started its engines in a growl, turning around, the other Preachers falling into place around it. Reduced to almost nothing, people were all the same after all, and Ariadne was glad to leave the Citadel in her dust.


	9. Chapter 9

IX.

The drive to the ravine was uneventful. The sandstorms had blown out, leaving behind gentle plains of sand, starkly at odds with the insane, apocalyptic tornado that Max had come far too close to for comfort only days before. The crazy brigand people with the weird spiky hedgehog vehicles seemed to have been more or less wiped out by Immortan Joe's vangard, and as they came within sight of the mountain ridges, Max slowed down.

"See any bikers?" he asked Arthur, who pushed back the sunroof and pulled himself up with the spyglass. After a few minutes, Arthur slipped back down, pulling the roof closed. 

"Nope." 

"Find that weird?" 

"Nope." Arthur shrugged. "They're like rats, only pop up when you don't expect it. Now where's this ravine?" 

"Haven't you been here before?" Max scanned the rock, then turned the Opus, angling to the right. 

"Not to the main pass. Went up another, narrow one, with a bike." 

"You were _alone_?" 

"Nah. Only crazy people go on raids alone." 

"Wouldn't have put it beyond you. Kid, you're crazier than a dingo on acid," Max muttered, studying the rock, and Arthur laughed. It was startling how easy it was between them, the push and pull, how comfortable it was, being around Arthur. It had been a long time since Max had met anyone whom he instinctively wanted to stay close to, someone whom he liked, someone whose laughter could curl a thread of warmth through his dust-deadened soul, enough for him to get over his original unease at getting close to another human being. 

They came across the ravine an hour later, and slowed to a stop to study it. Arthur pulled himself back up through the sun roof as the M'oath rumbled up next to them, Dom studying the ravine with his own spyglass. "Still blocked," Dom grumbled. "Not sure if that's a good thing." 

"Maybe the bikers and the remaining War Boys killed each other," Ariadne suggested, pulling down her scarf from across her mouth as she rolled to a stop on the opposite side of the M'oath. 

"Or maybe they've reached some sort of truce and are waiting to fall on us like a ton of bricks," Arthur said soberly. "What? I'm all about the worst case scenario." 

"Well, we've got to clear that rock collapse," Yusuf said dubiously. "I've got some ideas, but I need to know exactly how close the War Rig is to it, whether there are bikers around, all that." 

"Right," Dom pulled a face. "I was hoping to avoid this, but... Arthur, pick a team. Get out there and take a look." 

Arthur glanced down at Max, who shrugged. He didn't particularly care either way whether he went or stayed: since agreeing to drive out here on salvage, he'd already committed himself to the venture, after all. "Right," Arthur said. "Ariadne and Max." 

Max killed the engine, getting out of his car, and blinked as Arthur strung a bow over his back, with a quiver to his hip. "No guns unless we have to." 

"Can't use a bow." Max peered behind the car, where Ariadne was striding over to the closest Corvette, catching a bow and quiver tossed to her from the Preachers. 

"Really? You should learn. Carry the carbine, then." 

Max obligingly hauled the carbine out from within the Opus, and jogged behind Arthur and Ariadne as they made a bee line for the shadow of the ravine. Arthur studied the rock, then peered around the edge of the cliff at the blocked pass, then he gestured for Ariadne to head across. She nodded, darting out silently from their edge, across the mouth of the entrance to the blocked pass, and to the other side, flattening herself against the wall. They waited, but no shots came, then Arthur gestured for Max to watch the opposite cliff, even as Ariadne drew her bow quietly, watching their side, and then Arthur started to climb, nimble and agile, all the way up to the top. 

Holding his breath, Max tried not to stare at Ariadne's calm little face, time seeming to slow to a crawl as he felt the faint scrape of Arthur's boot up top, then, finally, Arthur murmured, "Clear. Get up here." 

The carbine had a tattered old canvas strap that Max strung over his shoulder and back, and he started to climb up, awkward and slow. Ariadne was faster, already swarming up to the top of the rock face when Max was only halfway up, and at the end, puffing, Arthur had to haul him over the edge. Following the deep gash in the rock between them, they crept closer to the blocked pass, then closer yet, and then Arthur held up a palm sharply, and pointed. It took Max a few moments to register it: a head wrapped in an orange scarf nearly the same colour as the rock, perched high above behind an outcrop, back towards them, either daydreaming or asleep. 

Arthur glanced at Ariadne, who shook her head, then he nodded, and drew his bow. Max unslung the carbine from his back, crouching down on one knee and resting the butt against his shoulder, but he didn't have to worry: Arthur notched an arrow, waited, then loosed it. There was a whistle of wind, then the sentry snapped back against the outcrop, an arrow in his skull. A few steps closer and it was Ariadne's turn to hold up a hand, to notch an arrow and draw her bow. Max waited tensely as she loosed the arrow, waiting, until she nodded back at them and gestured for them to keep going. 

They reached the blocked pass just as they were running out of ledge, and Arthur glanced around, then peered down, before grimacing and stepping back to allow Max to have a look. The natural arch that had collapsed was now chunks of rock and scree, piled over the modified cab, and the entire rig was beached on its side, the rear snarled up in the remains of the weird drummer/guitar vehicle and modded cars, in a tangled fist of blackened metal. The bodies had long been removed, possibly eaten by the biker gangs, and other than the two sentries they had killed, there were no other signs of life. 

"Look at the tracks," Arthur murmured. "Leading back out. War Boys tried to turn around, back out. Congestion. Bikers took advantage. Blackened sand, wrecked shells... they bombed the hell out of the survivors." 

"Didn't get too lucky." There were burned bikes too. No biker bodies. Either the bikers were sentimental enough to give their dead a burial, or unsentimental enough to eat even their own dead. Max suspected the latter. 

"Yeah. War Boys gave them a fight. But the fight headed out east. Cover us." Arthur gestured over at Ariadne, who nodded, and Arthur inched around the narrowing ledge to the other side, even as Ariadne started to climb, to get to a higher ledge. It seemed like an eternity before Arthur finally returned, gesturing for Ariadne to hunker down, then he patted Max's shoulder. "Going to get Dom. Stay here, yeah?" 

"Right." Max shuffled into the shade of an overhang, watching the reddened rock as Arthur padded off silently. 

Eventually, part of the salvage effort trundled into the mouth of the ravine, and Yusuf and Dom got out of the M'oath, even as Arthur pulled himself out of the Opus. Arthur climbed nimbly back up again, seemingly tireless, as below, Dom and Yusuf discussed the pile up in low voices. 

"How's it?" Max asked. 

"Yusuf had a lot of choice words to say. But it's doable. Gonna take time, though. You all right to watch here?" 

"Comfy." 

"I'm gonna go take a look around, then." Arthur patted his shoulder again. "You need something, just let Dom know." Before Max could object, Arthur had inched out over the ledge again, then moved out of sight. 

Mental. 

The sky was darkening by the time Arthur got back, climbing over the collapsed scree and slip-sliding back down. Max was sitting in the Opus, cleaning the carbine, and he glanced up as Arthur headed straight over to Dom, who paused in the middle of hauling his cart of rock. Everyone was pitching in shifts, and Max had just swapped sentry duty with one of the Preachers. 

"No sign of them for a mile out," Arthur said briskly. "I think they chased the War Boys out east." 

"Mutually assured destruction?" Dom asked. 

"Doubt it. Think they went back to one of their boltholes to lick their wounds." 

"War Boys?" 

"Got out far enough to the sands." 

"So they might be back." 

"Don't know. There ain't much of them to be back. Behind that blockage, there's about three quarters of Immortan Joe's vangard dead on their tracks." 

"So we finally catch a break." Dom relaxed visibly. "Fuck." 

"Wouldn't be too sure. We've never managed to figure out how many bikers live in these parts. I'll string up a roster to keep watch. You guys need to work as fast as you can."

5.0.

For all of Arthur's misgivings, they _weren't_ brutally attacked over the course of the next few days spent laboriously hauling away the rock and dirt on top of the War Rig. Most of humanity had died after the Collapse, after all: they were no longer a species teeming over the lands of the Earth. The scattered tribes that held pockets of this desolate land were ruled by resources: they had to constantly find food and water or die, and as such, for all of Saito's warnings to Max about the south, it _was_ actually possible to cross sometimes without seeing another person.

"I'm more worried about the sand storms," Arthur told Ariadne, as they sat perched on a high ledge, eating their evening rations: dried biscuits and water. Max was taking a late watch, and as such was curled against the rock beside them, twitchy but asleep, head pillowed on his balled up jacket. 

"They're bad this time of year," Ariadne agreed. "But we can pull back into the ravine if it starts up." 

"We don't have supplies for that long a wait." Arthur disagreed. "And we're sitting ducks out here." 

"No sign of the bikers yet. Or the War Boys." 

"Doesn't mean that they aren't out there." 

"Big Nothing's fucking big," Ariadne shrugged. "The other pass is two weeks from here, innit? Maybe they done chased each other all the way there." 

"Maybe," Arthur said dourly, having never liked to rely on optimism. "Thought you were going to stay at the Citadel." 

"Who, me? Why?" 

"Well," Arthur blinked at her. "You're of the Vuvalini." 

"I'm a Preacher." Ariadne corrected. "I liked it at Gas Town. Sure, it was boring sometimes. But when you talk to any of us there, or even Mister Saito, everyone's the same. Man, woman, we do our own thing. Citadel ain't like that. They're doing some things right, some things wrong." 

"Oh?" 

Ariadne made an impatient gesture with her free hand. "If you want to build a new society, you got to be careful about the details. _And_ you got to have some imagination. Run classes for women, sure. I get how Sheila is trying to make safe spaces for them, after what they used to live like in the Citadel. But they should do classes for men, too, and for kids. Mixed classes for kids. They got to get men _and_ women involved in running everything. And they got to find a way to house everyone inside. Build outwards, maybe, get scaffolding up like rings around the rock. Make _everyone_ part of trying to survive." 

"You could've made a good architect." Arthur said. Ariadne was behind a few of the improvements made to the Preacher warren, particularly the sand 'bathroom' and the silo stacking, a sign, Saito had once said, of a singularly inventive mind. 

"Nah. It's common sense. If they keep people sitting around at the foot of the Citadel, that's only gonna breed craziness. People are always hungry about what they don't have." Ariadne shuddered. "You didn't see it cos you were up top. But they're feral down there. If Capable hadn't turned the pipes on, I think they would've attacked us." 

"I saw," Arthur said soberly. The ring of the masses had closed around the convoy, and Arthur had felt helpless to see it. What could he do? Open fire? That would've burned more than a couple of bridges. Thank the Gods for Capable's quick thinking, as much as Arthur hadn't expected it from her: she hadn't seemed particularly friendly during their last meeting. 

"Can't blame them, of course," Ariadne added, to Arthur's surprise. "They live like roaches where they are. Don't have anything to live for but their next drink of water. Pared down to nothing, most people become nothing." 

And some become flint, Arthur thought, and glanced over at Max, who was murmuring something in his sleep, fingers twitching: the sight of it pulsed a core of warmth through Arthur, a rare moment of sentiment. When he looked back over at Ariadne, she was grinning at him. "What?" 

"Kinda too pretty for the end of the world, huh?" 

Arthur rolled his eyes, deciding to ignore the playful jibe. "I think Furiosa - assuming she gets better - will probably turn it around. You could help her," he added. "Implement your ideas. The Citadel's got one thing going for it. It's a monument to bloody-mindedness. Man-made oasis in the Big Nothing. Shame for it to all go wrong." 

"I dunno," Ariadne glared at her hands, and belatedly, Arthur realized how shaken Ariadne still was, at her close encounter with mobbed death at the foot of the Citadel. 

"Hey," he began, but Ariadne clenched her hands tightly, and set her jaw. "Heard a quote once," Arthur said conversationally. " _Survival is insufficient_. It's what Mister Saito thinks. Sometimes you have to dream bigger, even at the end of everything. And those of you who can, you got to make the rest of us dumb plebs see it too." 

"So you want me to go back to the Citadel?" Ariadne asked challengingly. "After all this?" 

"Nah. It's up to you. People like you were born into the brave new world. You guys don't know anything about the old one. Those of us who came before, we've kinda left you guys a shit deal. But I think you just have to try to make the best of it. Whatever you do." 

"You weren't _that_ old when the Collapse started," Ariadne shot back. 

"Yeah. But I was old enough to remember what things were like. And that's always gonna affect what I think things should be." Arthur said soberly. "Get some rest. Tomorrow I want to range out further. Try and see where the bikers got to." 

He watched as Ariadne climbed down to the base camp, then he reached over to pat Max by the ankle. Max woke, as always, like a wounded animal: startled, flinching and reaching for his gun, then he relaxed, and grunted, and sat up, yawning. Smirking, Arthur shifted over, out of sight of base camp, and tugged Max towards him, the drifter shooting him a querying stare for a moment then sucking in a slow breath as Arthur kissed him, their noses chilly as they bumped, breaths warm in the crisp air. 

"What was that for?" Max murmured, when they parted for air. 

Max _was_ too pretty for the end of the world. Arthur grinned at him, and kissed him again, and they ended up climbing up to the high perch where one of the biker sentries had been, the body long removed and buried, curling up together behind the rock cover, Arthur tucked under Max's chin, legs tangled, listening to his pulse, a pocket of tranquility under the vast arc of sky above them, the specks of distant stars. 

"You're still meant to keep watch," Arthur told him, and Max grunted in response, though his arm tightened briefly around Arthur's waist. 

Maybe Arthur's original impressions were better after all. Max _was_ someone worth keeping an eye on, damaged as he was: in this new world, they were _all_ damaged. 

"How's the work?" Max asked, oblivious. 

"Got a day shift and a night shift. Should take maybe a week most. Using cars to haul off the bigger rocks, digging up the smaller ones. Can't dynamite it: that'll damage the rig. Can't dissolve it either, same problems." 

"And after that? War Rig's not going anywhere on its side." 

"We'll right it and tow it back if it can't be fixed on the spot. I've seen Yusuf work wonders, though. Depends on the damage done to the engine, mostly. If it's all fucked, we don't actually need the cab, just the rest of the Rig." 

"Then after that, a tour of nuked cities?" 

"Maybe. Better than growing old and dying in Gas Town." 

"There's worse ways to go," Max said softly, and brushed his lips over Arthur's forehead. "Best you get some shut eye. I'll wake you at sun up."


	10. Chapter 10

X.

Arthur's increasingly broader ranging patrols didn't dig up more bikers. Unsurprising, Max felt, as he sat in the guard post and watched Dom's team swarming over the now-uncovered War Rig: from the look of the rest of the scrap pile, the metal carcasses of the wrecked cars had all already been scavenged for any usable loot. Bodies had been removed, fuel had been taken, and in some cases the cars were even missing wheels.

The bigger rocks had been hauled away, strapped to the M'oath and towed out of the ravine into a neat pile, and the rest had been cleared off in carts. All in all, they'd made good time. The M'oath was now leashed to the downed Rig, as were the Acca Daccas, sent up from Gas Town, and Dom stood at the back of the M'oath, hand braced against the cab of the truck. Yusuf stood below, anxiously fussing over the downed Rig, then finally, with open reluctance, he stood aside and made a thumbs-up gesture at Dom. 

With a moan of metal that seemed to echo damningly loudly around them, the War Rig heaved a step, against the groan of chains and the snarling roar of engines. Around Max, the ravine bristled with Arthur and the others, keenly eyeing the rock and beyond for intruders. Max swallowed slowly, trying to remind himself to breathe evenly: the air felt thick enough to cut with a knife, as the M'oath and the Acca Daccas hauled the War Rig further, carefully, until they were out of the mouth of the ravine. 

Max glanced over at Arthur, who looked up towards Ariadne, perched on the highest lookout. She scanned the area, then gave them a thumbs-up, and scrambled down, even as Arthur gave the signal to fall back. Max uncurled from his vantage point, slinging his carbine over his back as he slipped carefully down to a ledge, then started to climb down towards the ground, as around him, Preachers swarmed along ledges or down footholds. He was almost down when he finally heard the revving answer of a bike's engine. 

Hastily, Max dropped the rest of the way, the carbine back in his grip, backing away even as Arthur shouted an order from somewhere up top, the Preachers forming into an orderly, defensive line. From where Max stood, he could see bikers pop up from behind cliffs, half a klick or more away and up, swathed in scarves, watching them silently. There were six that he could count from where he stood, backpedalling slowly towards the mouth of the ravine, and he flinched as Arthur seemed to appear abruptly at his shoulder. 

"Give me that," Arthur said briskly, and Max handed over the carbine. 

"You sure you wanna do that?" Max asked warily, drawing pistols, as Arthur went into a crouch, aiming with the carbine. "They haven't bothered us yet." 

"Out here? It's shoot first or regret first. Besides," Arthur added impatiently, "You're thinking of it as, maybe they're gonna let us intruders out of their land. What they're _really_ thinking of is, they're just about to let a handful of prime long pork out of their reach." 

True. Max watched, wary, as Arthur lined up a sight, and then breathed in, and fired. The bark of the gun was loud in the ravine, echoing sharply, and Max heard the kick of the rifle as it slapped back against Arthur's shoulder. In the distance, one of the bikers keeled over, and even as his companions froze in shock, another biker's head exploded into red mist, and the rest scattered, engines roaring. 

"Time to piss off!" Max backed away, as a dirt bike leaped up into the air, aiming for a ledge high to their left, but then there was a crack of a rifle behind him, and the biker jerked wildly on the landing, spinning out of control to crash off the ledge and down onto the ravine floor in a thump and a dying shriek. Arthur was sprinting for cover, as more bikers exploded out towards the flat, wide ledge that they had originally climbed up to. 

" _Bombers_!" Dom yelled, from the M'oath, "Don't let them get close!" 

As Max flattened himself against the wall, the Preachers returned fire, picking off two more bikers, scrambling clear of strafing runs, then the ravine gang seemed to have abruptly had enough, disappearing back into the rocks as the Preachers got clear into their cars. Exhaling in relief, Max loped over to the Opus, and found that Arthur was already in the front passenger seat, grim-faced. As Max tilted his head in a silent query, Arthur jerked his chin to the north, where the sky was already beginning to blacken, a column of wind and dust starting to furl up towards the sky, dangerously close to the ridges of rock. 

"Shit." Max sucked in a whistling breath. _That_ had been what the bikers had run from. 

Arthur ignored him, glancing behind them at the M'oath, and spying some gesture from Dom, he settled back in the car. "Drive." 

"What? Out there? We can't outrun the storm, if you want to keep close to the War Rig." 

"Can't stay here either. Bikers know we're here now. If we sit in the ravine, they'll bomb us out. Just got to try to keep ahead of the storm." 

That sounded absolutely insane to Max, but he grit his teeth and set his hands on the wheel. More cars were being lashed frantically to the War Rig, and then there was another groaning squeal of metal as the War Rig was dragged over the sand. 

"Going to have to turn her right ways up!" Max heard Yusuf shout from the M'oath. "You'll rip her sides up like this!" 

"You can't get her operational in time for that storm to roll over!" Dom retorted. 

"I don't need to get her operational, I need her to get _the right way up_ ," Yusuf snapped, and Dom muttered something but started shouting orders. The M'oath trundled over to the right, as did the other vehicles, chains reattached to various points of the RIg, then there was another groaning whine of metal, as the vehicles fought to get the Rig tilted right ways up, chaos as other Preachers got out of their cars to push on the other side. 

Arthur sucked in a slow breath, and Max chanced a glance over at the storm. Was it getting closer? He couldn't tell. The eddying clouds were whorling around it, lightning flashing in bright streaks in its mantle, the winds funnelling around blackening dust, growing larger, ever larger. Nothing about it at all looked natural, the clouds streaked with sulfur and ochre and rust, like the rise of an angry God, set to bestride the dead world, the scream of the growing winds whipping down the sands towards them. 

Another groaning shriek of metal tugged Max's attention back to the Rig. She was in bad shape, her passenger cab blown open, engine likely mangled, exhaust pipes bent all out of shape, the turret cabs crushed, but strangely enough the suspension looked good, the tank was intact, and the wheels looked mostly fine, with only a couple shredded. The Rig listed heavily to the right, as the M'oath and the other vehicles stopped pulling, then under Yusuf's frantic directions, mechs started to change the shredded tyres, not even daring to look back at the storm behind them. 

The storm began to move, already a bank of thick dust, like a giant wave about to break over land, streaked with lightning. Mechs scrambled back into cars, as the chains were reattached to the front of the Rig, and the M'oath started its engines again in a roar. Incredibly, the Rig started to move, slowly at first, then picking up momentum, and they were off, trying to outrun a sandstorm in a crawl, before Dom stuck his head out of the M'oath and snapped, "Everyone else - just go. We're too heavy for the storm to lift. The rest of you ain't." 

"Probably," Yusuf muttered, but Dom ignored him. 

"Go! Go! You too, Arthur. Get clear. That's an order." 

Arthur set his jaw, but he nodded curtly, and with relief, Max floored the accelerator, the Opus lunging forward with the other lighter cars and bikes, speeding out over the sand. He could hear the roar of the winds now, drowning out the engines around them as the wind approached, in an inexorable line of dust and roiling thunder.

6.0.

When the storm front finally passed, the Preachers let out a collective sigh of relief. Four specks in the horizon were still trundling along: Dom and the others were safe.

"Too fucking close," Arthur muttered, and gave the signal to rejoin the convoy. The War Rig's flanks were even more battered, the tank dented heavily on the right, but other than that, and a great deal of sand sloughing off everything, everyone seemed all right. Dom had gambled again against the odds and won. 

It was late by the time they finally limped into Gas Town. Saito decided to celebrate: double moonshine rations, meat stews, everyone let off their shifts, crowding the streets up top, even, with no more fears of War Boys. Mainly, Arthur just felt tired. He squirmed through Dom's debrief with Saito, and slunk off when it was finally over, looking for Max, hoping that the drifter hadn't already taken his payment and left. 

Thankfully, he located Max in Yusuf's workshop, under the Opus, and at a nudge against his boot, Max hauled himself out, narrow-eyed for a moment, then relaxing when he recognised Arthur. "Getting familiar," was all Max said, as he got up, wiping his greasy hands on a rag. "Like to know my way around a new ride." 

"Going to leave already?" 

Max patted the new drum of guzzoline strapped to the back of the Opus, by way of an answer, though he studied Arthur when Arthur stepped closer, right up into his personal space. "One more night," Arthur growled, into Max's ear. "What's the harm?" 

"I'm not... good with all this," Max murmured uncertainly, though he curled an arm around Arthur's waist. "People." 

"Don't have to be," Arthur said, and tugged at Max's collar, and this time, Max came along willingly enough, stumbling with Arthur through the corridors, winding through to Arthur's house, scrambling up the trap door, and tangling up on the bed, kissing, hands plucking at each other's weapons, clothes, belts. 

Arthur was careful of Max's back, this time, as they kicked off boots and gear, Max's jacket slipping off the cot into a heap over Arthur's holsters, his knives thudding onto the ground against Max's trousers. Now, they were far more in sync, tangled but not tripping over each other, kisses wet and hungry and slick, all raw breaths between them both. He could feel Max's fat, hard cock pressed against his hip, and Arthur spat in his palm and curled his fingers around it, stroking until Max arched with a low, rough hiss above Arthur, elbows digging into the cot. 

Max was almost painfully lean, Arthur decided critically, in the light of the lantern hooked on the wall, but the rest of him was muscle and scars, and Arthur liked that, liked the way tightening fingers hooked Max's groans into open-mouthed gasps. A splash of come slicked up Arthur's fingers as he pressed his thumb up against the slit of Max's cock, and he smiled sharply, using the extra slick to grasp them both, rubbing their cocks together in the tightening funnel of his fingers. Max buried his face in the ragged pillow with a hoarse whimper, a tremor uncoiling through his frame as he thrust into Arthur's grip, a thin whine edging out against Arthur's ear as Arthur got his other hand further down, to press his gun-roughened palm up against Max's tightening balls. 

"Pity we don't have water to spare," Arthur turned his cheek, to hiss into Max's ear. "Would've gotten you washed up and ready for me, drifter, spread you on the bed and opened you up... you ever done that before? Let another man fuck your hole?" He slipped his hands up to the meat of Max's arse, pulled his cheeks open even as he bucked up to rub his cock against Max's, and Max gasped out a garbled string of something unintelligible. "Didn't get that," Arthur purred, and sank his teeth into the fleshy lobe of Max's ear. 

"Fuck!" Max flinched, and Arthur felt another spurt of fluid against his belly. "No, fuck I haven't, fuck-" 

"Christ," Arthur swore, and twisted, wrestling them around, searching Max's face for any hint of pain as his back hit the cot, but Max dragged him impatiently over for a kiss instead, his breath as shaky as the hands curled on Arthur's shoulders, and Arthur ground himself against Max's hips, teeth catching the plush edge of his mouth, then the hard length of his jaw. "Could pin you down," Arthur said breathlessly, "Make you take my fingers first, do it slow, until you're gagging for more, make you beg me-" 

"Arthur," Max choked out, "Arthur, mate, c'mon-" 

"When I get in you, you'll feel it," Arthur ignored the hands scrabbling at his shoulders, "Stretch you out, fill you up, know you'll love it, look at you, crazy for this and I haven't even touched you... but I won't let you come," Arthur added, with a wicked grin, memorizing Max's wide-eyed, flushed face, slack with ecstasy and fascination, "Not until I've fucked you raw, eaten you out, made you scream... I know you're close," Arthur added, as Max gasped out a sob and squirmed against him. "You want to come?" 

"Please," Max gasped. "Jesus _fuck_ please!" 

Arthur barely heard the strangled sound from his own throat as he grasped them both again, jacking them off, no teasing now, no finesse, the wet sound of his hand loud in the small house, eased by their shallow breaths, Max trembling against him, then crying out, hands fisting tight against the edge of the cot, spilling over his belly. Arthur bared his teeth, forcing himself to wait as Max sank back against the cot, breathing hard, dazed, waiting until Max started to frown, confused, before shifting down to stroke himself off, angling his grip, orgasm a jangling crest and a dizzy rush as he spent himself over Max's cock and balls, smirking at Max's startled gasp. 

Max didn't move as Arthur found a rag to nominally wipe them off with, though he grunted as Arthur curled up on the narrow cot on top of him, resting part of his weight on elbows and knees, soft cock pressed against Max's flank. There was a wary cast to Max still, but he still looked disoriented, near confused, and it softened Max out, made him look vulnerable. Again, Arthur's heart quickened. 

"So," Max rumbled, his tone facetious. 

"So," Arthur echoed, more teasingly, and Max chuckled hoarsely, mirth shaking under Arthur's chest. "Going to ride off into the sunset?" 

"Only crazy people drive at night," Max said, though his plush mouth curled into a tired smile. 

"The same crazy people who wander the Big Nothing alone?" 

"Maybe." Cracked knuckles pressed gently against Arthur's cheek, then Max inched his hand carefully up over the back of Arthur's skull, as though expecting Arthur to pull back at any minute. 

"You know," Arthur said mildly, "If it's all going to be the same to you, why don't you come with us? It'll be a change." 

"Head south?" Max said slowly, as though trying out the idea in his mind. "I dunno." 

"Where're you going to go otherwise?" 

"Around the rock, maybe. Scoot over to the Plains of Silence. Have a squizz at the other side." 

"Probably a whole lot of nothing." 

"I reckon," Max said evenly, and his palm carded lightly up through Arthur's hair, and back down, nearly to the nape of his neck. "Arthur." 

"I'm not asking you to think it over because you're a good lay," Arthur said, with a sharp quirk to his grin, perhaps too sharp. "But because I'm going to miss that Opus." 

"Too right," Max said soberly, and kissed Arthur over the forehead. "Look, mate. I could stick around a few days. But I think Yusuf's gonna need longer with that War Rig." 

"He probably is," Arthur agreed. "Tell you what. I haven't seen the Plains of Silence either. If you don't mind the company, I'll come along." 

"How're you getting back?" 

"Strap a dirt bike to the back of the Opus. I'll make my own way back." 

"Didn't you say that only crazy people go on raids by themselves?" 

"I won't go looking for trouble with just one dirt bike." 

Max fell silent, looking away, up at the ceiling, though his fingers still stroked carefully up and down the back of Arthur's skull. Just as Arthur was about to make a joke of it, to give Max an out, Max rumbled, "Right. Guess I could use the company, up 'till then."


	11. Chapter 11

XI.

Yusuf installed a bracket onto the back of the Opus, grumbling all the while, and fitted the dirt bike onto it, lashing it in place. Max loaded up the Opus with supplies: some biscuits, a small keg of moonshine, and water in a large glass bottle, wrapped up in rags to keep out the light. He had never had any problems cutting ties and moving on before, ever since he had been burned out of the last normal life he had ever tried to lead, an age and more ago, when he had a wife and a son. Now, however, he found that he was dragging his heels, taking his time as he slotted a small pack of donated ammunition under the driver's seat. Saito was being generous.

There was a different sense of purpose to Gas Town now, as though everyone was holding their breath, and at breakfast, alone, Max had overheard at least three different conversations discussing what Saito was going to do next. Take over Bullet Town. Take over the Citadel. Start business as usual. Hand it all over to Dom. He kept his peace and wondered how Arthur was going - Arthur had left early, to talk to Dom about his 'side trip', and hadn't been back yet, though he had clearly left Yusuf instructions about the bike. 

Speaking of Yusuf, the mechanic looked glum as he buffed down the Opus' side with a rag. "She's a good girl," he kept telling Max. "You take care of her." 

"I will." Max assured Yusuf absently. 

"I never made her for a solo ride," Yusuf said, with the whinging reproach of a craftsman having to vandalise his own art. 

"You've made her game enough for everything. Relax." Max was trying to be patient. Yusuf had been the one who had donated the precious pouch of tools that had gone under the passenger seat, also a generous gift by any means of the word. 

"You're gonna cross the Plains?" Yusuf asked, looking even more glum. "All that grit's gonna be hell on her paintwork." 

"She doesn't _have_ paintwork, Yusuf." 

"You know what I mean," Yusuf said, looking injured, even though Max clearly didn't. "Bloody drifters. Mister Saito's too nice by half." 

"Am I?" 

Yusuf startled violently, with a yelp, and turned around. "M-mister Saito!" 

"At ease, Yusuf." Saito smiled, as he clapped Yusuf on the shoulder. "May I have a word, Max?" 

"Sure thing." Max said warily, and frowned as Saito wandered over to pull the lever, opening the workshop up to the hot morning sun. He didn't head out, though, merely walking to the edge of the shade before the start of the ramp, folding his hands behind his back. Yusuf crabbed hastily away to the back of the workshop, and Max watched him go, then ambled over beside Saito and waited. 

"How old are you, if I may ask?" Saito inquired. 

"Kinda lost count," Max admitted. "I ain't that much further along than Arthur, though. I was also a kid when the Collapse happened. It's pretty much the only thing I remember from back then. The panic, the crazy shit happening on tv, the news going dark." 

"So I thought," Saito said pensively. "Do you watch the stars? The sky?" 

"No?" Max tilted his head, wondering where this was going. "I got a compass." 

Saito smiled faintly, and Max realized that he had misunderstood. "I remember only one thing from my own childhood. When I was a boy," Saito said softly, "I sat with all my family around our neighbor's television set. It was a tiny, black and white box, often temperamental. But it behaved that day, as it showed us man's very first step... on the moon! We did not know English, but we cheered. We wept. For it was like the beginning of a new age. It felt as though human ingenuity knew no bounds. That the stars were finally ours." 

"Funny how that turned out," Max said slowly. 

"You misunderstand," Saito said quietly. "Even now, the will of a single man can, with patience, with luck, with foresight, move the world to where he wants it to go. Within reason," he added, wryly. "Do you have a dream?" 

"I wanna _stop_ dreaming, actually," Max admitted. 

"Ah." Saito said, but there was no pity in his voice. "For that I can only tell you, time does heal all wounds. But you must give it space to do so. And the world is never louder around you but when you are alone." 

To that Max had nothing to say - he could only shrug. Thankfully, Saito didn't look like he was waiting for an answer. "I have a dream," Saito said softly. "In Japan, we have a custom called _hanami_. The more popular version involves the sakura, but I am perhaps old fashioned in many ways, and I prefer _umemi_ , the viewing of the plum blossoms, with sake, with dango. Now the trees are very likely all dead, perhaps the people, as well. But still I have this dream." 

"Sorry to hear that," Max muttered. "But I don't think you're gonna get any closer to it by leaving here and heading south. Best to maybe negotiate a deal with Furiosa. Plant some flower trees up top. You can drink moonshine when they bloom." 

Saito laughed, as though Max had cracked a joke, and Max stared at him, puzzled, but Saito didn't glance over. "I appreciate the suggestion. And I never said that I was going south." 

"Arthur thinks you are." 

Saito made a low humming sound his throat, then he added, "In a roundabout way, what I am saying is... I wish to go home. To the lands of my birth." 

"Well," Max said, taken aback, "Sorry to say it, but you're shit out of luck, mate. Japan's pretty damn far away." 

"There is always a way," Saito said, with irritating calm. 

"Good luck with all that," Max said dubiously. "But no offense, I don't see how you're gonna get around it. I mean. The seas are all dry. But out there, it's just days an' days of salt and bad ground and crazy nutballs." 

"Why do you walk the Big Nothing alone?" Saito asked then, with a gentle, unthreatening curiosity, and Max answered off the top of his head, without thinking about it or evading the question. 

"I got no place better to be." 

"A man with nowhere to be is a ghost," Saito said softly, and now there was pity, gentle still, solemn. "And a ghost will know only other ghosts." 

With that, Saito inclined his head politely at Max, and circled away, heading out of the workshop. Max stared after his back, blinking. For a moment, he almost expected his hallucinations to prove Saito right, to whisper into his ear, to thread into his vision, insidious and insistent, but all he could hear was Yusuf's pointedly busy clanging at the back of the workshop, all he could feel was the heat of the sun through the open ramp. 

Max was still puzzling it over when Arthur appeared, looking mildly irritated. "Let's go," he told Max bluntly, circling around to get into the passenger seat, a duffel bag slug over a shoulder, then he frowned at Max. "What? Something happen?" 

"Uh. Nothing." Max mumbled, and got into the driver's seat. "What got you so cranky?" 

"Dom's a god-damned nagger at the best of times," Arthur grumbled, as he stowed his bag behind his seat and closed the passenger door. "I told him, Yusuf's gonna need at least a week to fix up the War Rig, Dom's gonna be busy arranging for the trip, Ariadne's going to be packed off to the Citadel again, and Saito's gonna be busy tying up loose ends. So it's not like I got anything to do for all that time." 

"Thought Ariadne got scared off the Citadel." Max started up the Opus, his self-doubt and unease melting away as the powerful engine purred to life, and they pulled up out of the ramp and into the sun. 

"Nah. She got a bad turn at the crowd. But Sheila came over last night for a few more meds, and talked to her, so Ariadne's decided to give it another chance." 

"Good," Max decided. "She's a smart kid. They need more people like her there to turn things around." 

"You saw the mess, huh?" 

"Don't need to be smart to see that it's in a bad way." 

"Yeah. She's got her hands full if she wants to take that problem over. Dom said maybe I should take the time to go check out what's going on at Bullet Town," Arthur groused. "But I don't really give that much of a fuck, and besides, give or take a week or so and _we_ won't be here any longer either." 

"Who's gonna take over?" 

"No idea. Saito had a chat with Sheila. Think he's going to turn it over to Ariadne, if she stays." 

"Won't people be pissed? She's young." 

"I don't think that she's going to stay," Arthur said, and glanced out of the window at the Citadel, looming far away to their left. "And the sad thing is, if she doesn't? I think she'll regret it."

d.

Rather annoyingly, Capable stuck to Ariadne like a burr the moment Ariadne returned to the Citadel, and she couldn't shake her, not without being outright rude. Conscious that quite possibly, Ariadne was only alive because Capable had thought to turn on the water for the masses, Ariadne was polite at first, then coldly polite after the day wore on, and now she was exasperated.

Furiosa was improving at least. Yay for expired medicines! The ex-Imperator was well enough to walk, now, if for short distances, but she still preferred her weird tent up top in the Citadel, and Ariadne had explained her structural plans to Furiosa there, with a slate and chalk to illustrate the idea. Furiosa had nodded, pointed out a few details, and then had promptly given Ariadne free reign over the Citadel, so that she could check whether or not her construction plans were feasible. 

Which would have been awesome. If she hadn't acquired a stalker. 

Ariadne finally lost her patience in one of the mech shops, while inspecting the available scrap, and Capable blinked as Ariadne rounded on her. "Look," Ariadne said evenly, "I'm not about to run off and blow things up, or whatever you're worried about, so you don't need to follow me everywhere, all right?" 

"Oh." Capable blinked. "I wasn't following you around because of that." 

"Then?" Ariadne asked, aware that she was starting to be rude, but was too irritated to care. "Thanks for saving our asses down there, turning on the water. But you're really kinda starting to creep me out." 

"Sorry," Capable said, her face blank, and Ariadne grit her teeth. "It's just... Toast is real busy nowadays, as is everyone. I only really got along with um. Splendid. Who isn't. And. I was from Gas Town, like you know," Capable added, in a mumble. "I don't. Know anyone else around here really." 

Ariadne felt her temper melt away all in a rush, leaving embarrassment in its wake. "Oh. Oh I see. Um. Well. Let's start over," she said quickly. "Sorry. I'm kinda jumpy in this place." 

"I hate this place," Capable said suddenly, passionately. "I only have bad memories here. I hate all of it. I hate being here." 

"Well uh," Ariadne blinked, taken aback by the sudden blaze of emotion from Capable. "You don't have to _be_ here. You can go back to Gas Town. Mister Saito's running it now. You can work in the silos, or lean from Yusuf, or learn to shoot, something. As long as you work, you get food and water. In fact," she added, warming to her topic, "It's a pretty good life." 

Capable eyed her uncertainly, and finally said, "Is it true? That Mister Saito won't be staying long in Gas Town?" 

"Where'd you hear that from?" 

"Max said something of the sort to Furiosa." 

"Uh," Ariadne frowned. She had heard the rumours herself in Gas Town, but there were always wild rumours now and then, and she normally ignored them. "I dunno. Sounds like crazy talk to me. Why would he want to leave? He _owns_ the place now. Look, um, Capable," Ariadne added quickly, when Capable bit down on her lower lip and stared at her feet, "Maybe you should take a vacation down to Gas Town. Something. I can go with you if you want, even. Even if you decide not to stay there." 

"If Mister Saito leaves," Capable persisted, "I want to go with him. Can you tell him that?" 

"Well firstly," Ariadne said slowly, "I don't think he's leaving. But even if he is, if you can't shoot a gun, or fix a truck, I don't think he's really going to take you. Extra mouth to feed, yeah?" 

"You could teach me. One of those things." 

"Best if you ask Sheila," Ariadne noted uncomfortably. "I never taught anyone nothing before. But I don't really think there's a point. I mean. There's nothing worth going to out there. So I don't think Mister Saito's going anywhere." 

To her annoyance, Furiosa asked Ariadne about Saito's future plans as well, when she invited Ariadne up top for breakfast and a 'debrief'. 

"I don't know, all right?" Ariadne said, frustrated, and Furiosa eyed her thoughtfully before changing the subject. 

"How's the project going?" 

"I think we've got two options," Ariadne seized on the change gratefully. "One, we salvage enough scrap from the yards and maybe from around hereabouts and the Big Nothing or Gas Town to build outwards. We can mount more hydroponic farms along the new walls, it'll not only keep the new apartments cool, but anyone living along there can help with the upkeep. Give them something to own." 

"Own?" 

"Yeah. If you want someone to feel like they belong, to work in a community, then they either got to be working for something or own parts of it. Otherwise, what's the point?" 

"What indeed." Furiosa nodded, sitting cross-legged under the pavilion on the pillows. Thankfully, they were alone: Ariadne's patience was stretched thin with unwanted companions. "Good point. How're you going to make the extensions?" 

"It's a question of balance and support. I'll make a little model out of clay and stuff, see if it works. I've studied how some of the new refinery buildings were made, and I've done work with Yusuf...er... our mech guy." 

"Architecture isn't the same as working in a mech shop." 

"Really?" Ariadne challenged. "Far as I can see, it's the same. You get a big idea, then you try and see if it works-" 

"If a car blows up, maybe a handful of people die," Furiosa countered. "If the struts you build give out... that could be real bad." 

"Well yeah. It was just one idea," Ariadne said, abashed. "There's walkways built in here too. On the 'First' level and in the silo level. It's the same principles." 

"What's the other idea?" 

"It's slower, but maybe safer. We dig down. These columns are actually hollowed out with caves and natural tunnels. We shore up some, connect some, and a lot of people will be able to pack into them." 

"But?" 

"Not sure it's gonna be a good thing if all of them go stir crazy," Ariadne admitted. "Even if you work them all. We get some basket cases now and then in Gas Town, and part of the guest routine involves getting some sunshine everyday, even." 

"Guest routine?" 

"Yeah. People who ain't Preachers are guests. Guests either pay for a meal or they work. Doesn't have to be much. It's part of the system," Ariadne pointed out. "Owning something, or working towards something." 

Furiosa nodded, and something about the absorbed look on her face made Ariadne wary. "By the way," Ariadne added. "What did you do before?" 

"Before?" 

"I mean. All the War Boys are guys. So. Um." 

"Ah." Furiosa smiled flatly. "Originally, the Imperator was going to make me one of his wives. I was snatched when I was a child, you see. He was going to wait until I got to child-bearing age." 

"But?" 

"But I managed to escape six times, even as a child, over the years. On my sixth time, I killed two War Boys. One of them was twice my age. I lost my arm to him in the fight. Nearly died from the blood loss. Immortan Joe ordered me patched up. And after that, he put me in the War ranks. Said he'd never seen a child kill a full-grown War Boy. Said I was clearly a Valkyrie reborn. When you're a child," Furiosa looked away, "You can be so damned impressionable." 

"So you rose up in the ranks doing his thing," Ariadne guessed. "Stopped trying to escape?" 

"No. But I was more circumspect about it. Nothing overt enough to alert him if I failed. And I failed. Over and over. I was beginning to lose hope." 

"And now you're back here, king of everything." 

"And now I'm back here," Furiosa agreed pensively. "I've never had to manage something like this before. All I've had to run before were packs of War Boys. All the details that go into running the Citadel, I've never ever had to touch. If Sheila and Jessie weren't so hands on, I'll be totally lost. Until you brought up the sand folk being a problem, I didn't even think they would be an issue." 

"Hey," Ariadne said uncomfortably, "At least you're trying, right?" 

"Which might not be good enough. But we shall see." Furiosa folded her hands in her lap. "Ariadne. If Saito decides to leave Gas Town... you are more than welcome here. Help me build." 

"If he leaves," Ariadne said firmly, "I'll go with him." 

"Why?" Furiosa asked, her eyes calm. "People who wander the Wastes do it because they have nothing else to lose. I don't think that's the case where you're concerned."


	12. Chapter 12

XII.

The drive around the rock range of the biker folk took most of the day: the sun at midday was particularly hot, and they'd had to take shelter under an outcrop until the engine cooled down enough to move on. When the night chill came, Max opted to nudge the car under a rock shelf against the edge of the mountain range, and they ate their rations in silence, sitting together on the sand, thighs pressed close, looking up at the cloudless sky.

"Saito ever tell you about his childhood?" Max asked, licking biscuit crumbs off his fingers. 

"Not really. Why?" 

Max hesitated for a moment. "He mentioned the moon-" 

"The moon landing story? Ah yeah. He's mentioned that." Arthur turned his head, very slightly. The moon tonight was a fat crescent, cloaked in a dark sky with few stars. "I learned about it growing up in Pine Gap. Sounds like crazy talk to me. Getting a man up there. And what's the point of it all?" 

"Uh-" 

"Must've cost a crap ton of money." 

"I guess," Max said doubtfully. "Seems to have left a big impression on Saito." 

"Inspiration," Arthur scoffed, but he continued to look up at the moon, clasping his elegant hands over his belly. "What a funny world. Imagine those guys who made it up there. Bet they thought, in near half a century, maybe we'll be going further, to other planets, other stars. But we're stuck down here instead, 'cos we destroyed ourselves, like fucking idiots. 'The stars are not meant for man'." 

Arthur sounded as though he had been quoting someone. "Saito said that?" 

"It's from a book," Arthur said distractedly, and allowed Max to press a palm lightly against the thigh he had pushed against Max. "It's the one you saw me reading." 

"'Childhood's End'." 

"Good memory." 

"What's it about?" Max asked, just to hear Arthur talk, and he looked up at the stars, as Arthur described a rather improbable plot, of demon-shaped aliens and telepathy and human evolution and the collapse of society as people knew it, the inevitability of it all, the words of the last man on earth. "That why you like the book?" 

"I got nothing much else to read," Arthur said, amused. "But yeah. I like the book. As a species, even now, we still try to murder each other. We reached the pinnacle of our tech, promptly used it on ourselves, and now we're devolving, the last bad memories of this planet. Our last, epic, fuck-off to the world." He gestured grandly, at the endless sand around them. "Advanced enough to fuck it up for everyone, primitive enough to _decide_ to fuck it up for everyone." 

"There's still decent folk out there." Max patted Arthur's thigh, and Arthur chuckled. 

"Don't look at me. I sure as hell ain't one of them." 

"Y'know," Max said pensively. "Even if you go south. The cities are irradiated. And most of anything left's long been looted or torn up. Or just plain gone, like all this. The wars and the new weaps out of the wars changed the world. Boiled up the seas, made new mountains, the works. This sure as hell wasn't around a century back," Max jerked a thumb behind him, at the mountain range. "Nor was the Citadel." 

"Sure," Arthur said indifferently. 

"And," Max added, "Saito didn't say that he was going south, did he?" When Arthur was silent, Max added. "He plans on going home. Across the salt. North, not south." 

"Hm." Arthur frowned slightly up at the sky, then he nodded. "Makes sense." 

"You don't sound like you give a fuck." 

"It's all one to me." Arthur said lightly. "Saito first came to Pine Gap because he thought that an American military base might have a spare plane. Unfortunately, we didn't. We used to thread around cities, poking around air fields. No planes. Thought he gave up. We ended up settling in Gas Town. But he was always restless. So I thought maybe he'd settled for heading south. He used to talk about having had places in Sydney and Melbourne. Now that the oceans are gone, and we have the War Rig, we don't have to fuck around. We can drive across the salt." 

"Not an easy drive, mate," Max said slowly. "Water's gone. But. Land isn't all flat. Big convoy's gonna attract bad attention. And for what? To take an old man somewhere else for him to die?" 

"What about you?" Arthur asked. "What's beyond the Plains? Why're you going there, and for what? To take yourself somewhere else to die, alone?" 

"Maybe." Max thought back over Saito's words, about ghosts finding ghosts, and shuddered. "That what you think about people with nowhere to go?" 

"A man with no purpose is a dead man." Arthur said, and reached down, to squeeze Max's fingers lightly. "He just hasn't realized it yet. First watch?" 

"Sure," Max said, and Arthur patted his hand, and uncurled to his feet, climbing up into the Opus to sleep. Max glanced around, checking that they were out of sight from anyone looking from up top, then glanced back up towards the night sky. He tried to imagine what it would be like, a man walking on the moon. He had grown up in then-rural Queensland, and he could not quite remember what his childhood had been like, other than a vague impression of vast tracts of open space, devoted to crops of some sort, nor had he any impression of what a man might need to walk on the moon, or how he might get there, or why he had wanted to do it. 

Or why a child who knew no English would look at the image on television, a planet away, and be inspired enough to cry, inspired enough for that single moment to be one of the defining parts of his life. Perhaps the dead world had choked away more than the shreds of Max's old life. Rootless as he was now, he could not understand even why a man would spend most of his life trying to get back to a home that was no doubt completely and irrevocably ruined. For far too long, nothing had driven Max himself but the basic urge to survive, and it felt like far more had been pared away. He could not quite imagine why someone would place a dream that could have no good ending above survival. 

Arthur had said that people were devolving. Perhaps he was right after all. 

The morning's drive was subdued. Arthur was yawning, only still partly awake from having taken the second watch, and Max was still plagued with Saito's words. Eventually, sleepily, Arthur said, "You all right?" 

"Yeah, why?" 

"Been quiet for a while." 

"I was just wonderin'," Max said slowly, "What the man who walked on the moon looked like." 

"Oh, uh. Neil Armstrong?" Arthur frowned to himself. "Um-" 

"I meant, what he was wearing. How he got there. Things like that." 

"He, ah, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin took a rocket up. Then Armstrong put on one of those astronaut suits, you know, the bulky things with the fishbowl lens..." Arthur trailed off when he saw Max's face. "Kinda like a bulky white onesie with a black all face visor and a pack," he revised. 

The words had no meaning to Max, but he nodded, listening as Arthur described the lead up, the mission, the 'famous lines', famous no more. He wondered what Neil Armstrong had felt, looking at Earth from the face of another planet. He wondered what Neil Armstrong might have said instead, had he known that he represented the first and last hope of mankind to touch another planet, that the green and blue earth that he had seen and loved would soon be burned yellow and red and brown. 

_Who killed the world_? In the end, it had been everyone, and it had been a complete death, not just of people, but of everyone's hopes and dreams. The death of any dream to touch the stars. Of anything that could shake the world. 

There was nothing but empty sand, once the ravine was behind them, and Arthur, sensing Max's distraction, said, "We're in Saints territory. Keep an eye out." 

"Thought you said you hadn't been to the Plains." 

"I haven't. We're not at the Plains yet. I got this far before, to check it out. Didn't go well. Lost half my raid." 

Max blinked at him. "Then why the hell did you want to come back here just with me?" 

"'Cos we recently got some pretty good info bought off one of our guests that the Saints got hit with a bad case of something or other. Flesh diseases. Might not be here anymore. 'Round here, there ain't as many people as there are south. Soil isn't all bad further out. And there's more forage. Closer to the Plains, there's nothing but salt as far as the eye can see." 

"Better get used to that, if you're planning on following Saito." 

Arthur eyed Max thoughtfully, then he smiled, one of his thin, sharp smiles, and looked away again, out of the window, at the endless dead sand.

7.0.

On the edge of the Plains of Silence was an abandoned town. It had once been a holiday town of sorts, Arthur decided, with rows of small, brightly painted little houses facing the sea. Now the paint had mostly been scoured away, the rooftops rotted through, the township behind the houses swallowed by the sand, with only fingers of food and rusted metal left to remember it by. And the sea - the sea was gone: now it was just salt, plains upon plains of empty nothing.

The Plains of Silence. 

There was nothing here: they'd not even seen any hint of the Saints. No birds lingered, nothing crawled. Even the wind was quiet, the bright cloudless sky extending down to touch the faint bone white of the horizon line, like a world leached of all colours but two. Beside him, Max shaded his eyes, squinting out over the broad expanse of nothing, then he grunted, and scuffed his feet in the sand. 

"I remember this place." Max's voice was hushed. It felt strange to speak, in this place where nothing lived: Arthur nodded slowly in acknowledgement. "Used to be a holiday place. Came here when I was a mite." 

Arthur nodded again, and circled away from the line of small houses, heading towards the township, turning his back on the unbearable stretch of nothing at all, a vast monument to the destructiveness of human ambition. The largest ruin that remained was a short walk down the cracked street, the bitumen hot under his boots. The walls of the church had been blown down, but the pew and benches remained, bleached white by the sun, partly obscured by the collapsed roof, and Arthur glanced at the fallen cross on its side before moving on, through to the back. There had once been a fenced space, behind the church, where the graveyard had been, and the fingers of white stone still sat untouched, their inscriptions scoured but still readable. 

Max found him sitting on one of the larger, plainer headstones, hands folded in his lap, looking out towards the hazy line of the mountain range they had left behind. "'Here lies Mary Anne Casey,'" he read, glancing at the stone. "'Taken by God too soon'." 

"Six years old." Arthur patted the headstone. Max flinched, as though startled by something that Arthur didn't see, and Arthur eyed him in mild surprise, but instead of commenting, Max glanced over at the mountain range instead, as though trying to figure out what Arthur was looking at. 

"Gone too soon," Max murmured, as though to himself. "Lucky her." 

"Being dead isn't being lucky." 

"Man with no purpose is a dead man," Max repeated Arthur's words, and Arthur smiled. 

"That's my point. The difference is, with her, all her time's up," Arthur patted the headstone again. "With you, maybe your time will come tomorrow, maybe the day after, maybe in years, but no one will mourn you when you drop. Dust in the wind." 

"That's where we all end up. Same deal." 

"Look around you, man." Arthur gestured back at the town. "All these people are gone. We're still here. Each and every one of us remaining is a miracle." 

"Or kinda a bad fluke," Max countered. "Who haven't yet been arsed to die. Like roaches." 

Arthur chuckled. "Some people, sure. But the rest? What's the point of just living it day to day, just focused on food, water, and walking into nothing?" 

"What's the point of moving on from something that works, going into nothing?" 

"Ah," Arthur leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You don't know that it's nothing." 

"So what, you're hoping that there's something better out there? Better than Gas Town and the Citadel? Some kinda last bastion of humanity?" 

"Not at all," Arthur smirked. "I think it's probably around the same everywhere else. No last hope of civilisation, no secret rocket base for the stars. But if I die, I want to do it going somewhere. Chasing something. Maybe the stars aren't meant for man. But this world was. Even what's left of it." 

He could feel Max staring at him, studying him, but he wasn’t sure if Max was actually _listening_. Arthur felt a rush of sympathy then, pity, almost, though he didn't dare to look up, and hoped it didn't show. He could hear Max stepping away, then, doing a slow circuit of the graveyard. "'Here lies Jessie Adams... William Anderson... hm, they buried the preacher, too. Reverend James Elliot." 

"What killed them?" 

"Doesn't say." Max had circled back towards Arthur, pressing a hand tentatively on the small of Arthur's back. "Doesn't matter. Everyone dies." 

"Exactly," Arthur said quietly. "Everyone dies." 

Max's hand dropped away, and he visibly swallowed, as though struggling for something to say. "Arthur..." 

And this was it, Arthur knew then. This was goodbye. There was nothing left to say: nothing really left of Max worth saying it to. Still, Arthur chose his words carefully, and kept his tone gentle. "You only get one chance at life. Don't waste it." 

Max seemed frozen as Arthur got off the stone, and stayed utterly still as Arthur leaned up, to brush a kiss against his bristly jaw. Then Arthur extended a hand, and after a long moment, Max shook it, his hand limp. "Best of luck," Arthur said, squeezed Max's hand, and walked away, his breath tightening for a moment before he exhaled irritably, heading briskly towards the Opus. 

Arthur picked up his duffel bag from behind the passenger seat, then unhooked the dirt bike off the back of the Opus, working on autopilot. Regret buzzed under his skin, but he pushed it away, instead recalculating the route he had originally planned for Saito's eventual move south. North - north they would have to pass the sandstorm zones, risk the mutant tribes that roamed nomadic over the dead bushlands. And beyond that was salt: more endless salt. They'd have to pack supplies for months. 

He revved up the engine, balancing himself on the bike, scanning the way back for any signs of the Saints and their modded hog bikes. Only then did Arthur looked back, over at Max, who was still standing in the graveyard beside the last memory of a little girl, and then he started off, back towards Gas Town.


	13. Chapter 13

Ariadne

It was immediately obvious on Ariadne's return to Gas Town that Max's information had been right after all. Saito _was_ intending to leave. Thrown, she walked numbly through the Preacher warren, which was in a state of growing panic. Beside her, Jessie hummed under her breath, watching as people hurried past, eyes fixed on the ground. Thankfully, Dom located them before they got very far, or Ariadne would probably have led their new guest in increasingly bewildered circles in her own home, and hustled them towards Saito's office.

Beyond Saito's office, the silos were still operating, full steam ahead, and the sight of it relaxed Ariadne enough to greet Saito and introduce Jessie. Saito shook her hand firmly, smiled at Ariadne, and invited them all to take a seat. Dom leaned against one of the file cabinets, arms folded, and Ariadne hesitated for a long moment before she awkwardly sat down as well, knees pressed together, hands clasped, feeling awkward and far too young all over again, like the very first time she had met Saito. 

"Ariadne," Saito said gently. "This is not an easy decision." 

"You're _going_ ," Ariadne burst out. "Why? You were here all this while! You've been _feeding_ people. Now Immortan Joe's gone, Scabrous is gone, the People Eater's dead. You could take over. Build it all up." 

"I am not a... good man," Saito said heavily, "By any means of the word. What you see as charity has been for me a means to an end. I never intended to die in Gas Town. But what was originally but an enterprise," Saito added, when Ariadne started to protest, "Became more. In the beginning, I came to Gas Town because this was one of the closest refineries in Australia that also made jet fuel. I intended to stay, only long enough to get what I needed, and then to keep going, to go south, to find a plane to take me home." 

"An enterprise that began with the need to take over important parts of the refinery became, in time, an enterprise that fed most of a town, and then, just as I was planning to leave, the last of the known world collapsed. The oceans boiled and became salt. All the years committed to Gas Town were wasted - or so Dom told me," Saito said, with a nod at Dom. "But I do not see it as waste. Waste in this world is only what you fail to use." 

"And so began a long wait. First, to turn my operation in Gas Town to as efficient and self-run an enterprise as I could. Second, to wait for Immortan Joe to die, and so, hopefully acquire his War Rig: though he has been a long time in dying, even with his illness. And thirdly," Saito leaned forward, his hands flat on his desk, "To find and train my successor." 

As Ariadne sucked in a sharp breath, Saito added, "For despite not being a good man, I grew up learning a... code, of sorts. Honour. And it would not be honourable for me to leave, without knowing that Gas Town will not starve. It would not have been honourable to leave while it had no access to water, or no promise of better days to come. You may be very young. But you have imagination and intelligence, and more importantly, you have compassion. Wisdom will come in time." 

"I don't want to stay _here_ ," Ariadne burst out. "Not if everyone's going! Is Arthur going? Dom? Yusuf?" 

"Arthur and Dom, yes. Yusuf, we shall see. Anyone who wishes to come with me is welcome to come. And you, as well," Saito said quietly. "For you are dear to us, and we are family, this Company, through circumstance, though not through blood. But I would hope that you would decide to stay. Because you are young, and you were born into this world, with no memory or prejudice from the last. For good, for ill, this new world is yours. And you'll be wasted on an old man's dream." 

Ariadne glared at her hands, and took in a shuddering breath, and forced herself to hold back angry tears, her fingers biting into her palms. "You could have said. Earlier." Ariadne accused Saito quietly. "You said something to _Arthur_." 

"I said nothing to Arthur. But Arthur has been with me since Pine Gap. It would not surprise me if he knew that I was not going to stay." 

"Why didn't you say anything to me? To us all?" 

"Because a dream that is as simple as the wish to go home is also, because of its very simplicity, a powerful idea," Saito said, gentle, but inexorable. "And for most of you this _is_ your home, and I hope that it will always be a safe one. To be without belonging on this earth, to wander it, always hungry for the past: that is not a fate that I would wish on the young." 

"When are you all going?" 

"Soon." Saito said, with a glance at Dom. "When Yusuf repairs the War Rig. I'll leave enough resources in Gas Town to defend it if need be. But the wall around the town is a fair enough defense on its own." 

"Can I think about it?" 

"If you like." Saito glanced at Jessie. "What is your business with me, Jessie-san?" 

"Just "Jessie' is all right, thanks." Jessie was smiling, a wry, small smile. "Furiosa sent me to take a squizz at your ops, s'all. Wanted to know whether you were fucking off." 

Dom grimaced, in Ariadne's peripheral vision, but Saito chuckled. "Yes. You may inform Furiosa that I am, indeed, leaving. And that the agreement between the townships will have to be something best revised or affirmed by my successor. Whoever that may be." 

"You're a right piece of work, son," Jessie drawled. "Well. I guess I'll hang around, until that's worked out. If that's all right." 

"Feel free." 

Jessie patted Ariadne on the back, then got up, and Dom pushed away from the file cabinets, gesturing, leading Jessie out of Saito's office. 

"Take a few days if you need it," Saito suggested, when they were alone, but Ariadne had already known what she would say, a few days or not. She knew what she had to do. 

"I don't need it," Ariadne said finally. "You've been like a brother to me, an uncle, a father, a friend." 

"And you are like a younger sister to me, a niece, a daughter, a friend," Saito reached out over the table, with an open palm, and Ariadne clasped it tightly, again swallowing tears. "We Japanese do not say this lightly. But _sayōnara_ , Ariadne-kun. And good luck." 

" _Sayōnara_ , Saito-san," Ariadne said softly. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

Arthur

Yusuf had done an incredible job on the War Rig. It even gleamed in the sun, as it rumbled out from one of the converted War Boys workshops, and the crowd clustered in the streets cheered as they saw it. The tasteless skull motifs and décor had been replaced, and although the War Rig still looked imposing, as its horn blared, answering the cheering people, it no longer looked like something of Immortan Joe's. Instead, on its doors, a flared wing had been painted, a white one, with black tips, the paintwork still drying.

Arthur was perched in the rebuilt front turret lookout, duffel bag at his feet, stuffed with his books, and another bag of ammunition and weapons beside it. Their supplies were being carried in the M'oath and in one of the Acca Daccas, the escort a small complement of dirt bikes. Most of the Preachers had decided to stay, after all. Arthur hadn't been surprised. 

Ariadne was up front, along with Jessie, both on their bikes. They were going to ride out to the Citadel with the War Rig, to get the water, with some sort of official handover of sorts. Arthur wasn't sure about the details, and didn't particularly care. He was going to miss Ariadne. But he was glad that she was staying. With her, perhaps both the Citadel and Gas Town could finally get around to more than surviving. 

The farewells were somewhat subdued: most of the people in the crowd were battling hangovers from the partying the night before. There were cheers again, as Saito came out of the workshop, followed by Dom, and he waved, then he bowed, and walked through the parting crowd to the War Rig. When he got in, after pulling back the reverse doors, the cheers grew louder, ebbing only when Dom got in as well and closed the door. Yusuf hopped out, a grimace on his face, wiping his hands down nervously on his overalls, and he waved up at Saito, then glanced up, and waved at Arthur, who nodded at him. Yusuf had been a good friend. 

As the War Rig revved up, and jolted forward, Arthur stood up, balancing against the cab, as the gates were pulled open, looking back over the township where he had spent so much of his adult life. He had expected to feel some regret, or yearning, but he didn't. The world itself lay before him, paved by Saito's dream. He was looking forward to the future- 

"Isn't that the drifter?" Dom's voice made Arthur look sharply to the side, once they cleared the walls: then he had to blink, and rub his eyes. In the shadow of the Gas Town Wall, leaning against the Opus, Max had his arms folded, watching as the convoy trundled out of the township. Dom rolled to a stop, and Arthur swung down to the cab. 

"Give me a minute?" 

Saito nodded, and Arthur dropped the rest of the way, dodging bikes, striding over to Max. He tried to swallow his lifting spirits, told himself that Max had probably decided to finally do the sane thing, to stay where there was food and water and no more crazy fanatics. This was just goodbye, a second time. 

"Hey," Arthur said softly, when he got close, instead of all the witty things he'd thought of. "Fancy seeing you again." 

"Yeah." Max said quietly. "Life's funny that way." 

"Going to stay in Gas Town after all? Or the Citadel? They probably could use you." 

Max glanced up at the high wall behind him, for a moment. "Nah." 

"Heading back the other way then?" 

"Thought I might come with," Max said, a little unevenly. "For a bit, anyway. If the offer's still out there." 

Arthur stared, for a long, startled moment, then he started to laugh, joyous, and reached over to clasp Max's wrist tightly, arm to arm. "Yeah. I think it's still open." 

Getting back into the Opus felt _right_. Arthur was still grinning hugely as Max pulled the car up next to the War Rig, and Saito glanced at them for a moment before nodding, and saying something to Dom. The convoy started up again, heading for the Citadel, and Max said not a word all the way, even after the War Rig was lifted up, with Dom, Saito, Ariadne and Jessie, leaving the M'oath and the rest idling just outside the Citadel. 

"Change of heart?" Arthur asked carefully then, and Max's gaze flicked to him briefly before going up to the Citadel. 

"Think you were right. And 'sides," Max murmured. "It's all the same to me. Heading east, heading north, everywhere." 

"This wasn't the true answer, Arthur felt, studying Max's intent face, which was fixed on the lift heading up, and he thought back over the past few days, over a few chance discussions. "Saito talked to you, didn’t he? That's how you knew about the moon story." 

"Yeah." 

"And...? Did he ask you to stay?"

"And it was a good talk. But he didn't buy me, if that's what you're asking." 

"Say no more," Arthur said, satisfied. For Saito was a master of subtle solutions, and not all problems in the world needed to be solved with brute force. "But I'm glad you're here," he added, and leaned over, to peck a teasing kiss on the edge of Max's mouth, and laughed as Max growled and pulled Arthur over and onto his lap.

Saito

On their first night before the northern flank of the salt plains that had once been known as the Coral Sea, Saito carefully climbed up to sit on the top of the War Rig, between the two turret positions, looking up at the moon. Once it had been a source of mystery, then, inspiration, and finally, now, it was a symbol to him of things that were, things that could have been, and things that never would be. He felt a surge of fondness for it, a great, wry tenderness, and as he studied the chain of stars that wreathed the moon against the night sky, Dom climbed laboriously up to sit beside him.

"We got off pretty easy," Dom reported. "That skirmish with those ratbags cost us a couple of the bikes, sure, but we got one of their tricked up four wheelers, and we don't have casualties, only four injured, nothing too serious." 

"Good." Saito said approvingly. The Preachers who had, by and by, decided to come along were the toughest of his team, and, mostly, the oldest. Those who had known the world before. Those who had known him long enough to be infected by the simplicity of his dream, however unconsciously. Like Arthur. 

"Forgot to ask," Dom added. "I kinda thought we were gonna take whoever wanted to come along." 

"We were. Preachers, that is." Saito noted. "If you are talking about the girl who wished to come with us from the Citadel... she only wished to escape a place that had long been her prison and her torment. She did not truly want to wander the wastes. Ariadne will help her." 

"What about those War Boys?" 

"Too young, or too sick, or both." Saito had felt pity for them, but nothing more. As he mentioned to Ariadne, after all, he was not particularly a good man, and this was also an enterprise. He could afford to take no one who could not take care of themselves - and those whom he was not personally sure of. 

"I'm also thinking," Dom said slowly. "After we get you to Tokyo. I might, ah. I might head off." 

"Oh?" 

"East," Dom stared at his hands. "I mean. Mal and I. We left our kids in the States. Philippa and James. They've got to be... they've got to be... man, they're probably all grown up, now," Dom said wistfully. "Don't even know if I'll recognise them." 

"That's a great deal of salt to cover," Saito said slowly, though he had expected this, foreseen it, even. "I have counted your duty to me completed years and years ago, old friend." 

"I want to get you home," Dom shrugged. "You've been good to me. Even with all that happened with Mal, and all that. All these years I ain't ever regretted following you." 

"Once you get me to Tokyo, whatever circumstances may be there, you are welcome to the War Rig." Saito decided. "I hope that you find them." 

"Yeah." Dom relaxed. "Thanks." He started to climb down, then he hesitated. "You know. All this while. I would've thought I was just crazy, still determined to get home, despite everything. But you changed all that. Made me think that it wasn't as crazy as I thought." 

"Life is too short for regrets." Saito said gently, and Dom nodded at him, swinging down to the camp. Over at the edge of the salt, Arthur glanced over, from where he sat against the Opus with Max, then upwards, at the stars. 

On the shore of the dead sea, below the stars that man would now never touch, Saito dreamed.

Max

According to Saito, they had just made landfall on 'Papua New Guinea - probably'. Sand underfoot didn't actually make a great deal of difference to Max compared to the uneven salt they had been driving over the past few days, but some of the Preachers whooped and jumped out of their vehicles to sift their hands through it. Mountainous ridges from the world's upheaval period had cut the tip off the land, the rock rising in sheer, stepped cliffs up into the sky. There were birds, wheeling above, always a good sign, and as Max squinted at the wheeling forms, trying to figure out what they were, Arthur slid back the sun roof and aimed the carbine up at the flock. He sighted down the rifle for a long time, then he suddenly straightened up, and put the gun away.

"Could've made good eating," Max suggested. 

"Could've called in attention." Arthur jerked his thumb at the rock behind them. "Birds mean life somewhere inland, maybe water. Means people." 

"Not always." 

"When's the last time you hit an oasis that had nobody sitting his ass inside it?" 

"Could've made good eating," Max repeated, though he smirked, and got out of the Opus to stretch his legs. The sand was bone white, the beach sweeping inland all the way to the start of the rock cliffs, and as he scrunched along the hot sand, swinging his arms and rubbing his back, he stepped on something that scraped underfoot. 

Bending down, Max picked up a flat disc that, on closer inspection, was a shell of some sort, a pale white ridged fan, chipped at the edges, and as he wandered about, the Preacher camp setting up around him, Max picked up a handful more, absently. He showed them to Arthur as the day grew darker, as rations were doled out from the Acca Dacca, and Arthur chewed on a jerky of dried meat as he turned the shells carefully over in his hands. 

"Huh." Arthur picked two shells from the lot, and tried to fit them together. "Seashells. Never seen any before." 

Max nodded. He didn't remember them either, but he should, he felt, somewhere in the murky past. It seemed less and less important. He had left the remains of his life far behind, beyond the salt, and even the ghosts were starting to fade. In this perhaps, Saito had been right. A man who was a ghost only attracted other ghosts: some of the flesh, most of the mind. Max felt like he was a sleepwalker, who was only now beginning to surface, in a slow awakening that excised much that he had already mourned about the world that was. 

He ate his biscuits, and watched as Arthur played at carefully stacking the seashells in a teetering tower on the sand, and after, when it was time to kip down for the night, Max took the shell that was the least chipped, wrapped it in a rag, and stored it under the driver's seat, next to Arthur's bag of books and odds and ends. It was the first thing that he had taken for himself, in longer than he could remember, which was not essential to him surviving another day, and Arthur eyed him thoughtfully as they settled down together against the flank of the Opus, over bedding of worn blankets and coats, Arthur tucked into the crook of Max's arm. 

"Last couple of days were tough going," Arthur murmured. "Deep ravines, having to go in circles sometimes, bad terrain." 

"Only gonna get tougher," Max pointed out. 

"Yeah," Arthur said, and he sounded pleased - anticipatory, even, and for a moment, Max envied him intensely: envied Arthur his enduring curiosity, his drive, his hunger for even the bones of the world that was. "Don't think I told you before. But I'm real glad that you changed your mind and came back." 

"I'm glad that I did as well," Max admitted. For it would have been easy to leave, to keep going his own way, as he had before, over and over, each time but a faint blip on a life spent pared down to little else but a survival instinct. It had been hard to think things over, to turn around. It had been hard to try his best to begin to wake up. 

Arthur mumbled something against Max's flank, and curled closer, hand snaking out over Max's belly, the smell of guzzoline and metal from the Opus near drowning out sweat and sand. Max breathed deep, and curled his fingers lightly over the curve of Arthur's shoulder. Tonight, tomorrow, and for the days to come, his world would become the grace of night, daubed with stars; under the sun and the empty sky, it would be the endless road, winding forever through the bones of the earth.

**Author's Note:**

> Finished! :3 Thanks for reading!
> 
> Some notes:  
> \- I only realized partway through the fic that the oceans were probably dry: Max talks about 160 days of driving across the salt. It actually takes only maybe 3 months to drive around Australia, and that's doing all the touristy stuff and rest stops. If you really wanted to, you only need about 34 hours to drive from the north to the south. This meant an abrupt turn in my original vaguely planned ending XD;;  
> \- I love the post-apocalyptic genre. I like reading stories about the evolution (or devolution) of people, about the contrast in life, about societal changes. :) Inevitably, such stories are bleak. But my favourites end with some sort of hope, a note that humanity does not need trappings to remain human. For those who love the genre, I highly recommend: Gemmell's Jerusalem Man series, Emily St John Mandel's Station Eleven, the audiobook version of World War Z, Mike Carey's Girl With All the Gifts, Dmitry Glukhovsky's Metro 2033, and David Brin's phenomenal The Postman. :) 
> 
> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent


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